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OUK ARMS INTERTWISTED, AS ONLY LOVEKS AND HOYS KNOW HOW. 

—Page : 



Iborae Subsecivae. 



Rab and His Friends 



And Other Papers 



John Brown, M.D., 

F.R.S.E. 



"Cefagotage de tant si diverse s pieces, se faict en cette 
condition: queje ny mets la main, que iors qu* line trop 
lasche oysifvete me presse." — MICHEL de Montaigne. 



ARTISTES EDITION. WITH NUMEROUS NEW ILLUSTRA- 
TIONS BY JESSIE SHEPHERD AND WILLIAM A. 

McCULLOUGH 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

I'l BLISHERS 



\ 

Copgrfgbt, 1893, 
&V tfreoectcfc B. Stokes Company 



" The treatment of the illustrious dead hy the quick, often reminds me of 
the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the skull of poor defunct Yorick." — \v. h. b. 

" Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent, nisi se jam pervenisse 
putassent." 

" There's nothing so amusing as human nature, but then you must have 
some one to laugh with." — c. s. B. 

" Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears." — sir p. Sidney. 



PREFACE. 



" Squeeze out the whey," was the pithy and sharp ad- 
vice of his crusty, acute, faithful, and ill-fated friend, 
William Taylor of Norwich, author of English Synonyms, 
to Southey, when that complacent and indefatigable poet 
and literary man of all work sent him the MSS. of his huge 
quartos. It would perhaps have been better for his fame 
had the author of Thalaba, Don Roderick, and The 
Curse of Kehama taken the gruff advice. 

I am going to squeeze my two volumes into one, keep- 
ing it a profound secret as to what I regard as whey and 
what curd ; only I believe the more professional papers, as 
Locke and Sydenham. , Dr. Marshall, etc., are less read- 
able—less likely to while away the idle hours of the gentle 
public, than those now given : they are squeezed out not 
without a grudge. 

My energetic friend, J. T. Fields, of the well-known 
Boston firm, has done the same act of excision by the two 
volumes that I now do, — and has done it admirably. 
Only I could not but smile when I saw Hortz Subsecivce 
exchanged for " Spare Hours," — a good title, but not 



iv preface. 

mine ; and my smile broke into laughter when I found 
myself dedicated * affectionately" to an excellent man and 
poet, whom, to my sorrow, I do not know. 

While thanking my American friends, and shaking 
hands with them across the great deep, I cannot deny 
myself the satisfaction of acknowledging the following 
portion of a letter received a day or two ago from an un- 
known friend — Charles D. Warner, of Hartford, Conn., 
U.S. :— 

" I see you lay some stress upon the fact that your ven- 
erated father was very tenacious of purpose, and that that 
is a trait of the Browns. The branch of the family in this 
country also assert the same of themselves. 

" In further reading how your father came, late in life, 
when it was too late, to know that he had neglected his 
body, I called to mind a remark of another Dr. Brown, 
which I thought you might like to hear, as confirmatory 
of your theory of the unity of the Browns. 

" Dr. John Brown, D.D., was a native of Brooklyn, in 
this State. He was settled at one time in Cazenovia, New 
York, and finally died at the age of fifty, prematurely worn 
out, at Hadley, Mass. He was a man of great tenacity of 
purpose, strength of intellect, a clear thinker, and gener- 
ally a powerful man. He was also much beloved, for his 
heart was large and warm. 

" While he was waiting for death to overtake him, being 
undermined as I have said, I have heard my mother say 
that he once remarked, ' I have worn myself out in labour 



preface. v 

which God never required of me. and for which man never 
will thank me.' " 

Those of my readers who think life in the main more 
serious than not, will forgive this grave and weighty pas- 
sage. Those who do not think so, will not be the worse 
of asking themselves if they are safe in so doing. 

J. B. 

23, Rutland Street, 
15M Feb, 1862. 



Human wisdom has reached its furthest point when it gets 
to say — I do not know — God knows. In the child's story oj 
" Beauty and the Beast," the Beast says to Beauty, " 'Do you 
not think me very ugly?" " Why, yes," said she, ''for I 
cannot tell a story." " You are right/' replied the "Beast; 
*' and besides being ugly I am very stupid." " I think you 
cannot be very stupid," said Beauty, " if you yourself know 
this." — From a thoughtful Discourse on Plato, by, I believe, a 
Liverpool Merchant. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

RAB AND HIS FRIENDS i 

HER LAST HALF-CROWN 16 

OUR DOGS 19 

QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN .40 

ArXINOIA— NhARNHSS OF THK NOY2— PRESENCE OF MIND 

— EY2TOXIA: HAPPY GUESSING 44 

LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D.D 51 

DR. CHALMERS . 121 

DR. GEORGE WILSON 145 

NOTES ON ART 153 

"OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" 205 

EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES 212 

THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES 222 

'•WITH BRAINS, SIR!" 236 

ARTHUR H. HALLAM, . 253 



HORAE SUBSECIVAE. 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 

FOUR-AND-TH1RTY years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were 
coming up Infirmary Street from the High School, our 
heads together, and our arms intertwisted, as only lovers 
and boys know how, or why. 

When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, 
we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. " A dog-fight !" 
shouted Bob, and was off ; and so was I, both of us all 
but praying that it might not be over before we got up ! 
And is not this boy-nature ? and human nature too? and 
don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we 
see it ? Dogs like fighting ; old Isaac says they " de- 
light" in it, and for the best of all reasons ; and boys are 
not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see 
three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man — 
courage, endurance, and skill — in intense action. This 
is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and 
enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their 
pluck. A boy — be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if 
he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he 
would have run off with Bob and me fast enough : it is a 
natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men 
have in witnessing intense energy in action. 

Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman wish to 
know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight 
to his brain ? He did not, he could not see the dogs 
fighting ; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. 
The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting, is a crowd 
masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassion- 
ate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using 



2 f>orae Subsectvae. 

her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many 
" brutes ;" it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile ; a 
crowd centripetal, having- its eyes and its heads all bent 
downwards and inwards, to one common focus. 

Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over : a small 
thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large 
shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled 
with. They are hard at it ; the scientific little fellow do- 
ing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting 
wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. 
Science and breeding, however, soon had their own ; the 
Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working 
his way up, took his final grip of poor Yarrow's throat, — 
and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a brown, 
handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would 
have liked to have knocked down any man, would " drink 
up Esil, or eat a crocodile," for that part, if he had a 
chance : it was no use kicking the little dog ; that would 
only make him hold the closer. Many were the means 
shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of 
ending it. " Water !" but there was none near, and many 
cried for it who might have got it from the well at Black- 
friar's Wynd. " Bite the tail !" and a large, vague, benev- 
olent, middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with 
some struggle got the bushy end of Yarrow's tail into 
his ample mouth, and bit it with all his might. This was 
more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspir- 
ing shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad 
visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our large, vague, 
benevolent, middle-aged friend, — who went down like a 
shot. 

Still the Chicken holds ; death not far off. " Snuff ! a 
pinch of snuff !" observed a calm, highly-dressed young 
buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. " Snuff, indeed !" 
growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. " Snuff ! 
a pinch of snuff !" again observes the buck, but with more 
urgency ; whereon were produced several open boxes, and 
from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he took a 
pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the 
Chicken. The laws of physiology and of snuff take their 
course ; the Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free ! 



IRab an£> bis ffrtenfcs. 



The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his 
arms, — comforting him. 

But the Bull Terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatis- 
fied ; he grips the first dog he meets, and discovering she 
is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of 
amende, and is off. The boys, with Bob and me at their 
head, are after him : down Niddry Street he goes, bent on 
mischief ; up the Cowgate like an arrow — Bob and I, and 
our small men, panting behind. 

There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a 
huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the cause- 
way, as if with his hands in his pockets : he is old, gray, 
brindled as big as a little Highland bull, and has the 
Shaksperian dewlaps shak- 
ing as he goes. 

The Chicken makes 
straight at him, and fastens 
on his throat. To our as- 
tonishment, the great crea- 
ture does nothing but stand 
still, hold himself up, and 
roar — yes, roar ; a long, se- 
rious, remonstrative roar. 
How is this ? Bob and I are 
up to them. He is m 21 zzled ! 
The bailies had proclaimed a at him. 

general muzzling, and his 

master, studying strength and economy mainly, had en- 
compassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, con- 
structed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. 
His mouth was open as far as it could ; his lips curled 
up in rage — >a sort of terrible grin ; his teeth gleaming, 
ready, from out the darkness ; the strap across his mouth 
tense as a bowstring ; his whole frame stiff with indig- 
nation and surprise ; his roar asking us all round, " Did 
you ever seethe like of this ?" He looked a statue of an- 
ger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. 

We soon had a crowd : the Chicken held on. " A 
knife !" cried Bob ; and a cobbler gave him his knife : you 
know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a point, 
and always keen. I put its edge to the tense leather ; it 




The Chicken makes straight 



Iborae Subsecfvae. 



ran before it ; and then ! — one sudden jerk of that enor- 
mous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, 
— and the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp, 
and dead. A solemn pause : this was more than any of 
us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow over, and 
saw he was quite dead : the mastiff had taken him by the 
small of the back like a rat, and broken it. 

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and 
amazed ; snuffed him all over, stared at him, and taking a 
sudden thought, turned round and trotted off. Bob took 
the dead dog up, and said, " John, we'll bury him after 

tea." " Yes," 
said I, and was 
off after the mas- 
tiff. He made 
up the Cowgate 
at a rapid swing; 
he had forgotten 
some engage- 
ment. He turn- 
ed up the Can- 
dlemaker Row, 
and stopped at 
the Harrow Inn. 
There was a 
carrier's cart 
ready to start, 
and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his 
hand at his gray horse's head, looking about angrily for 
something. " Rab, ye thief !" said he, aiming a kick at 
my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the 
heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching 
his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart. — his 
ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too. 

What a man this must be — thought I — to whom my 
tremendous hero turns tail ! The carrier saw the muzzle 
hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly 
told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and 
still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone 
were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was 
mitigated, and condescended to say, " Rab, ma man, 




Rab. 



•flab an5 bis jfriettfcs, 5 

puir Rabbie," — whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the 
ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted ; 
the two friends were reconciled. " Hupp !" and a stroke 
of the whip were given to Jess ; and off went the three. 

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had 
not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house, in Mel- 
ville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence ; 
and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys, 
Trojans, we of course called him Hector. 



Six years have passed, — a long time for a boy and a 
dog : Bob Ainslie is off to the wars ; I am a medical 
student, and clerk at Minto House Hospital. 

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday ; and 
we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his 
heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, and an 
occasional bone. When 1 did not notice him he would 
plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that 
bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the 
one side. His master I occasionally saw ; he used to call 
me " Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. 

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, 
when I saw the large gate open, and in walked Rab, with 
that great and easy saunter of his. He looked as if tak- 
ing general possession of the place ; like the Duke of 
Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory 
and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, 
with her cart ; and in it a woman carefully wrapped up, — 
the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. 
When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) 
made a curt and grotesque " boo," and said, " Maister 
John, this is the mistress ; she's got a trouble in her 
breest — some kind o' an income we're thinkin'." 

By this time I saw the woman's face ; she was sitting 
on a sack filled with straw, with her husband's plaid 
round her, and his big-coat, with its large white metal 
buttons, over her feet. 

I never saw a more unforgetable face — pale, serious, 



6 Iborae Subsecivae. 

lonely* delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call 
fine. She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as 
snow, with its black ribbon ; her silvery, smooth hair set- 
ting - off her dark-grey eyes — eyes such as one sees only 
twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of 
the overcoming of it : her eyebrows** black and delicate, 
and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few 
mouths ever are. 

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful counte- 
nance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. " Ailie," 
said James, " this is Maister John, the young doctor ; 
Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doctor." 
She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing ; and 
prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and ris- 
ing. Had Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down 
the Queen of Sheba, at his palace gate, he could not have 
done it more daintily, more tenderly, more like a gentle- 
man, than did James the Howgate carrier, when he lifted 
down Ailie his wife. The contrast of his small, swarthy, 
weather-beaten, keen, worldly face to hers — pale, subdued, 
and beautiful — was something wonderful. Rab looked 
on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything that 
might turn up, — were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, 
or even me. Ailie and he seemed great friends. 

" As I was sayin\ she's got a kind o' trouble in her 
breest, doctor; wull ye tak' a look at it?" We walked 
into the consulting room, all four ; Rab grim and comic, 
willing to be happy and confidential if cause could be 
shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same terms. 
Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn hand- 
kerchief round her neck, and, without a word, showed me 
her right breast. I looked at and examined it carefully, — 
she and James watching me, and Rab eyeing all three. 
What could I say ? there it was, that had once been so 
soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so 
" full of all blessed conditions," — hard as a stone, a cen- 

* It is not easy giving this look by one word; it was expressive of her 
being so much of her life alone. 

** ..." Black brows, they say, 

Become some women best, so that there be not 

Too much h;iir there, but in a semicircle, 

Or a half-moon made with a pen." 1 — A Winter's Tale. 



Irtab anfc bis tfrtenfcs, 7 

tre of horrid pain, making that pale face, with its grey, 
lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet resolved mouth, ex- 
press the full measure of suffering overcome. Why was 
that gentle, modest, sweet woman, clean and loveable, 
condemned by God to bear such a burden ? 

I got her away to bed. " May Rab and me bide ?" 
said James. " You may ; and Rab, if he will behave 
himself." " I'se warrant he's do that, doctor ;" and in 
slunk the faithful beast. I wish you could have seen him. 
There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost 
tribe. As I have said, he was brindled, and grey like 
Rubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard, and close, like a 
lion's; his body thickset, like a little bull — a sort of com- 
pressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety 
pounds' weight, at the least ; he had a large blunt head ; 
his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any 
night, a tooth or two — being all he had — gleaming out of 
his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the rec- 
ords of old wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all 
over it ; one eye out, one ear cropped as close as was 
Archbishop Leighton's father's ; the remaining eye had 
the power of two ; and above it, and in constant com- 
munication with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which 
was for ever unfurling itself, like an old flag ; and then 
that bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it could in any 
sense be said to be long, being as broad as long — the 
mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud were very 
funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings and 
winkings, the intercommunications between the eye, the 
ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest. 

Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size; and 
having fought his way all along the road to absolute 
supremacy, he was as mighty in his own line as Julius 
Caesar or the Duke i 
of all great fighters. 

You must have often observed the likeness of certain 
men to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. 
Now, I never looked at Rab without thinking of the great 

* A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of singular 
pluck, was so much more solemn than the other dogs, said, "Oh, Sir, life's 
full o' sariousness to him — he just never can get eneuch o' fechtin'." 



I 
8 Iborae Subsedvae. 

Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller.* The same large, 
heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance, 
the same deep, inevitable eye, the same look, as of thun- 
der asleep, but ready, — neither a dog nor a man to be 
trifled with. 

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. 
There was no doubt it must kill her, and soon. It could 
be removed — it might never return — it would give her 
speedy relief — she should have it done. She curtsied, 
looked at James, and said, " When ?" " To-morrow," 
said the kind surgeon — a man of few words. She and 
James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she 
spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each 
other. The following day, at noon, the students came in, 
hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, 
on a small well-known black-board, was a bit of paper 
fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers be- 
side it. On the paper were the words, — " An operation 
to-day.— J. B. Clerk." 

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places : in 
they crowded, full of interest and talk. " What's the 
case ?" " Which side is it ?" 

Don't think them heartless ; they are neither better nor 
worse than you or I : they get over their professional hor- 
rors, and into their proper work ; and in them pity, as an 
emotion, ending in itself or at best in tears and a long- 
drawn breath, lessens, — while pity, as a motive, is quick- 
ened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor 
human nature that it is so. 

The operating theatre is crowded ; much talk and fun, 
and all the cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon 
with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie : one 

* Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as a 
boxer ; not quarrelsome, but not without " the stern delight" a man of 
strength and courage feels in their exercise. Dr. Charles Stewart of Dun- 
earn, whose rare gilts and graces as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a 
gentleman, live only in the memory of those few who knew and survive 
him, liked to tell how Mr. Fuller used to say, that when he was in the pul- 
pit, and saw a buirdly man come along the passage, he would instinctively 
draw himself up, measure his imaginary antagonist, and forecast how he 
would deal with him, his hands meanwhile condensing into fists, and 
tending to "square." He must have been a bard hitter if he boxed as 
he preached — what " The Fancy' 1 would call " an ugly customer."' 



m 




Behind was James with Rah." — Page 9. 



IRab anfc bis ffrtenfcs. 

look at her quiets and abates the eager students. That 
beautiful old woman is too much for them ; they sit down, 
and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel 
the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but 
without haste ; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her 
white dimity short-gown, her black bombazeen petticoat, 
showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet shoes. 
Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the 
distance, and took that huge and noble head between his 
knees. Rab looked perplexed and dangerous ; for ever 
cocking his ear and dropping it as fast. 

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, 
as her friend the surgeon told her ; arranged herself, gave 
a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, 
and took my hand. The operation was at once begun ; it 
was necessarily slow ; and chloroform — one of God's best 
gifts to his suffering children — was then unknown. The 
surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but 
was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him ; 
he saw that something strange was going on, — blood 
flowing from his mistress, and she suffering ; his ragged 
ear was up, and importunate ; he growled and gave now 
and then a sharp impatient yelp ; he would have liked to 
have done something to that man. But James had him 
firm, and gave him a glower from time to time, and an 
intimation of a possible kick ; — all the better for James, it 
kept his eye and his mind off Ailie. 

It is over ; she is dressed, steps gently and decently 
down from the table, looks for James ; then turning to the 
surgeon and the students, she curtsies, — and in a low, 
clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved ill. 
The students — all of us — wept like children ; the surgeon 
happed her up carefully, — and, resting on James and me, 
Ailie went to her room, Rab following. We put her to 
bed. James took off his heavy shoes, crammed with 
tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully 
under the table, saying, " Maister John, I'm for nane o' 
yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and 
I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as canny as pussy." 
And so he did ; and handy and clever, and swift and ten- 
der as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremp- 



io Iborae Subeecivae. 

tory little man. Everything- she got he gave her : he sel- 
dom slept ; and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of 
the darkness, fixed on her. As before, they spoke little. 

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how 
meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally, in his 
sleep, letting us know that he was demolishing some 
adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally 
to the Candlemaker Row ; but he was sombre and mild ; 
declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and 
indeed submitted to sundry indignities ; and was always 
very ready to turn, and came faster back, and trotted up 
the stair with much lightness, and went straight to that 
door. 

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn 
cart, to Howgate, and had doubtless her own dim and 
placid meditations and confusions, on the absence of her 
master and Rab, and her unnatural freedom from the 
road and her cart. 

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed 
" by the first intention ;" for as James said, " Oor Ailie's 
skin's ower clean to beil." The students came in quiet 
and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she 
liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon 
dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short kind way, 
pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the 
circle, — Rab being now reconciled, and even cordial, and 
having made up his mind that as yet nobody required 
worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratits. 

So far well : but, four days after the operation, my 
patient had a sudden and long shivering, a " groosin'," as 
she called it. I saw her soon after ; her eyes were too 
bright, her cheek coloured ; she was restless, and 
ashamed of being so ; the balance was lost ; mischief 
had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red 
told the secret ; her pulse was rapid, her breathing 
anxious and quick, she wasn't herself, as she said, and 
was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. 
James did everything, was everywhere ; never in the way, 
never out of it ; Rab subsided under the table into a 
dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, which 
followed every one. Ailie got worse ; began to wander 



1Rab anfc hie tfrten&s. 11 

in her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways 
to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He 
was vexed, and said, " She was never that way afore, no, 
never." For a time she knew her head was wrong, and 
was always asking our pardon — the dear gentle old 
woman : then delirium set in strong, without pause. 
Her brain gave way, and then came that terrible spec- 
tacle, 

" The intellectual power, through words and things, 
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way ;" 

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, 
mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words 
of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends and 
scraps of ballads. 

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely 
beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, 
affectionate, eager, Scotch voice, — the swift, aimless, 
bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and 
perilous eye ; some wild words, some household cares, 
something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called 
rapidly and in a " fremyt" voice, and he starting up, sur- 
prised, and slinking off as if he were to blame somehow, 
or had been dreaming he heard. Many eager questions 
and beseechings which James and I could make nothing 
of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink 
back ununderstood. It was very sad, but better than 
many things that are not called sad. James hovered 
about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever ; 
read to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the 
Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own 
rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the 
fit words, bearing up like a man, and doating over her as 
his " ain Ailie." " Ailie, ma woman !" " Ma ain bonnie 
wee dawtie !" 

The end was drawing on : the golden bowl was break- 
ing ; the silver cord was fast being loosed — that animula 
blandula, vagula, hosfies, comesque, was about to flee. 
The body and the soul — companions for sixty years — 
were being sundered, and taking leave. She was 
walking, alone, through the valley of that shadow, into 
which one day we must all enter, — and yet she was not 



12 Iborae Subsecivae. 

alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comforting 
her. 

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, 
asleep ; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas, and 
sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and tak- 
ing a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held 
it eagerly to her breast, — to the right side. We could 
see her eyes bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, 
bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a 
woman holds her sucking child ; opening out her night- 
gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding 
over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one 
whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is sat- 
isfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted 
dying look, keen and yet vague — her immense love. 

" Preserve me !" groaned James, giving way. And 
then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it sleep, 
hushing it, and wasting on it her infinite fondness. 
" Wae's me, doctor ; I declare she's thinkin' it's that 
bairn." " What bairn ?" " The only bairn we ever had ; 
our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom forty years and 
mair." It was plainly true : the pain in the breast, tell- 
ing its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was 
misread and mistaken ; it suggested to her the uneasi- 
ness of a breast full of milk, and then the child ; and so 
again once more they were together, and she had her 
ain wee Mysie in her bosom. 

This was the close. She sank rapidly : the delirium 
left her ; but, as she whispered, she was " clean silly ;" it 
was the lightening before the final darkness. After hav- 
ing for some time lain still — her eyes shut, she said, 
" James !" He came close to her, and lifting up her 
calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, 
turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but 
could not see him, then turned to her husband again, as 
if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes and 
composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, 
and passed away so gently, that when we thought she 
was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, held the 
mirror to her face. After a long pause, one small spot of 
dimness was breathed out ; it vanished away, and never 



TRab and bis tfrtenfcs, 13 

returned, leaving- the blank clear darkness without a 
stain. " What is our life ? it is even a vapour, which 
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." 

Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless : 
he came forward beside us : Ailie's hand, which James 
had held, was hanging down ; it was soaked with his 
tears ; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at her, and 
returned to his place under the table. 

James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some 
time, — saying nothing ; he started up abruptly, and with 
some noise went to the table, and putting his right fore 
and middle ringers each into a shoe, pulled them out, 
and put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, 
and muttering in anger, " I never did the like o' that 
afore !" 

I believe he never did ; nor after either. " Rab !" he 
said roughly, and pointing with his thumb to the bottom 
of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself ; his head 
and eye to the dead face. " Maister John, ye'll wait for 
me," said the carrier ; and disappeared in the darkness, 
thundering down stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a 
front window : there he was, already round the house, and 
out at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. 

I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid; so I sat 
down beside Rab, and being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke 
from a sudden noise outside. It was November, and 
there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in statu 
quo ; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but 
never moved. I looked out ; and there, at the gate, in the 
dim morning — for the sun was not up, was Jess and the 
cart, — a cloud of steam rising from the old mare. I did 
not see James ; he was already at the door, and came up 
the stairs and met me. It was less than three hours since 
he left, and he must have posted out — who knows how ? — 
to Howgate, full nine miles off ; yoked Jess, and driven 
her astonished into town. He had an armful of blankets, 
and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me, 
spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets 
having at their corners, " A. G., 1794," in large letters in 
red worsted. These were the initials of Alison Graeme, 
and James may have looked in at her from without — him- 



14 Iborae Subsecivae. 

self unseen but not unthought of — when he was " wat, 
wat, and weary," and after having walked many a mile 
over the hills, may have seen her sitting, while " a' the 
lave were sleepin'," and by the firelight working her name 
on the blankets, for her ain James's bed. 

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his 
arms, laid her in the blankets, and happed her carefully 
and firmly up, leaving the face uncovered ; and then lifting 
her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with a resolved 
but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage, and 
down stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light ; 
but he didn't need it. I went out, holding stupidly the 
candle in my hand in the calm frosty air ; we were soon 
at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw he was 
not to be meddled with, and he was strong, and did not 
need it. He laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he 
had lifted her out ten days before — as tenderly as when 
he had her first in his arms when she was only " A. G." — 
sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to the 
heavens ; and then taking Jess by the head, he moved away. 
He did not notice me, neither did Rab, who presided be- 
hind the cart. 

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the 
College, and turned up Nicolson Street. I heard the soli- 
tary cart sound through the streets, and die away and 
come again ; and I returned, thinking of that company 
going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the 
morning light touching the Pentlands, and making them 
like on-looking ghosts ; then down the hill through Auch- 
indinny woods, past " haunted Woodhouselee ;" and as 
daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, and 
fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James 
would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on 
her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with 
Rab and shut the door. 

James buried his wife, with his neighbours mourning, 
Rab watching the proceedings from a distance. It was 
snow, and that black ragged hole would look strange in 
the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of white. James 
looked after everything ; then rather suddenly fell ill, and 
took to bed ; was insensible when the doctor came, and 



IRab and bis ffrienfcs. 15 

soon died. A sort of low fever was prevailing in the vil- 
lage, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery 
made him apt to take it. The grave was not difficult to 
re-open. A fresh fall of snow had again made all things 
white and smooth ; Rab once more looked on, and slunk 
home to the stable. 

And what of Rab ? I asked for him next week at the 
new carrier who got the goodwill of James's business, and 
was now master of Jess and her cart. " How's Rab ?" 
He put me off, and said rather rudely, " What's your 
business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put off. 
" Where's Rab ?" He, getting confused and red, and in- 
termeddling with his hair, said, " 'Deed, sir, Rab's deid." 
" Dead ! what did he die of ?" " Weel, sir," said he, get- 
ting redder, " he didna exactly dee ; he was killed. I had 
to brain him wi' a rack-pin ; there was nae doin' wi' him. 
He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna come oot. 
I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, 
and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur 
gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith 
to mak' awa wi' the auld dowg, his like wasna atween 
this and Thornhill, — but, 'deed, sir, I could do naething 
else." I believed him. Fit end for Rab, quick and com- 
plete. His teeth and his friends gone, why should he 
keep the peace, and be civil ? 

He was buried in the braeface, near the burn, the 
children of the village, his companions, who used to make 
very free with him and sit on his ample stomach, as he 
lay half asleep at the door in the sun, watching the 
solemnity. 



16 Iborae Subsecfvae. 



HER LAST HALF-CROWN. 



" Once I had friends — though now by all forsaken ; 
Once 1 had parents — they are now in heaven. 
I had a home once — " 

Worn out with anguish, sin, and cold, and hunger, 
.Down sunk the outcast, death had seized her senses. 
There did the stranger find her in the morning- 
God had released her. 

SOUTHEY. 

HUGH Miller, the geologist, journalist, and man of 
genius, was sitting in his newspaper office late one dreary 
winter night. The clerks had all left, and he was pre- 
paring to go, when a quick rap came to the door. He 
said " Come in," and, looking towards the entrance, saw 
a little ragged child all wet with sleet. " Are ye Hugh 
Miller ?" " Yes." " Mary Duff wants ye." " What 
does she want ?" " She's deein'." Some misty recollec- 
tion of the name made him at once set out, and with his 
well-known plaid and stick, he was soon striding after the 
child, who trotted through the now deserted High Street, 
into the Canongate. By the time he got to the Old Play- 
house Close, Hugh had revived his memory of Mary Duff ; 
a lively girl who had been bred up beside him in Cromarty. 
The last time he had seen her was at a brother mason's 
marriage, where Mary was " best maid," and he " best 
man," He seemed still to see her bright young careless 
face, her tidy short gown, and her dark eyes, and to hear 
her bantering, merry tongue. 

Down the close went the ragged little woman, and up an 
outside stair, Hugh keeping near her with difficulty ; in the 
passage she held out her hand and touched him ; taking 
it in his great palm, he felt that she wanted a thumb. 
Finding her way like a cat through the darkness, she 




Wasn't it half-a-ckown Y'—Page 18. 



fbct Xast 1balf*Grown. it 

opened a door, and saying, " That's her !" vanished. By 
the light of a dying fire he saw lying in the corner of the 
large empty room something like a woman's clothes, and 
on drawing nearer became aware of a thin pale face and 
two dark eyes looking keenly but helplessly up at him. 
The eyes were plainly Mary Duff's, though he could rec- 
ognise no other feature. She wept silently, gazing steadily 
at him. " Are you Mary Duff ?" " It's a' that's o' me, 
Hugh." She then tried to speak to him, something 
plainly of great urgency, but she couldn't ; and seeing 
that she was very ill, and was making herself worse, he 
put half-a-crown into her feverish hand, and said he 
would call again in the morning. He could get no infor- 
mation about her from the neighbours : they were surly 
or asleep. 

When he returned next morning, the little girl met him 
at the stair-head, and said, "She's deid." He went in, 
and found that it was true ; there she lay, the fire out, her 
face placid, and the likeness to her maiden self restored. 
Hugh thought he would have known her now, even with 
those bright black eyes closed as they were, in ceternum. 

Seeking out a neighbour, he said he would like to bury 
Mary Duff, and arranged for the funeral with an under- 
taker in the close. Little seemed to be known of the poor 
outcast, except that she was a " licht," or, as Solomon 
would have said, a " strange woman." " Did she drink ?" 
" Whiles." 

On the day of the funeral one or two residents in the close 
accompanied him to the Canongate Churchyard. He ob- 
served a decent-looking little old woman watching them, 
and following at a distance, though the day was wet and 
bitter. After the grave was filled, and he had taken off his 
hat, as the men finished their business by putting on and 
slapping the sod, he saw this old woman remaining; she 
came up and, courtesying, said, " Ye wad ken that lass, 
Sir?" "Yes; I knew her when she was young." The 
woman then burst into tears, and told Hugh that she 
" keepit a bit shop at the close-mooth, and Mary dealt 
wi' me, and aye paid reglar, and I was feared she was 
dead, for she had been a month awin' me half-a-crown :" 
and then, with a look and voice of awe, she told him how 



18 Iborae Subsecfvme. 

on the night he was sent for, and immediately after he 
had left, she had been awakened by some one in her room ; 
and by her bright fire — for she was a bein, well-to-do 
body — she had seen the wasted dying creature, who came 
forward and said, " Wasn't it half-a-crown ?" " Yes." 
" There it is," and putting it under the bolster, vanished ! 
Poor Mary Duff ! her life had been a sad one since the 
day when she had stood side by side with Hugh at the 
wedding of their friends. Her father died not long after, 
and her mother supplanted her in the affections of the 
man to whom she had given her heart. The shock made 
home intolerable. She fled from it blighted and embit- 
tered, and after a life of shame and misery, crept, nto the 
corner of her room to die alone. 



" My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are 
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your 
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 





And introduced himself with a wag of his tail." — Page 20. 



©ur Docjs. 19 



OUR DOGS 



" The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon ; but to be sure, if 
he lived for fifty years, and then died, what would become of me?" — 
Sir Walter Scott. 

" There is in ez'ery animafs eye a dim image and gleam of human- 
ity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up 
to our great mystery of command 07'er them, and claims the fellowship 
of the creature if not of the soul." — Ruskin. 

" They say that Socrates swore by his dog." — Montaigne. 



To Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyaris 
glum and faithful 

PETER, 
with much regard. 



I was bitten severely by a little dog when with my 
mother at Moffat Wells, being then three years of age, 
and I have remained " bitten" ever since in the matter of 
dogs. I remember that little dog, and can at this moment 
not only recal my pain and terror — I have no doubt I was 
to blame — but also her face ; and were I allowed to search 
among the shades in the cynic Elysian fields, I could pick 
her out still. All my life I have been familiar with these 
faithful creatures, making friends of them, and speaking 
to them ; and the only time I ever addressed the public, 
about a year after being bitten, was at the farm of Kirk- 
law Hill, near Biggar, when the text, given out from an 
empty cart in which the ploughmen had placed me. was 
"Jacob's dog," and my entire sermon was as follows: 
" Some say that Jacob had a black dog (the o very long), 
and some say that Jacob had a white (log. but / (imagine 
the presumption of four, years!) say Jacob had a brown 
dog:, and a brown do<j it shall be." 



20 Iborae Subeccivae. 

I had many intimacies from this time onwards — Bawtie, 
of the inn ; Keeper, the carrier's bull-terrier ; Tiger, a huge 
tawny mastiff from Edinburgh, which I think must have 
been an uncle of Rab's ; all the sheep dogs at Callands — 
Spring, Mavis, Yarrow, Swallow, Cheviot, etc.; but it was 
not till I was at college, and my brother at the High 
School, that we possessed a dog. 



TOBY 

Was the most utterly shabby, vulgar, mean-looking cur I 
ever beheld : in one word, a tyke. He had not one good 
feature except his teeth and eyes, and his bark, if that can 
be called a feature. He was not ugly enough to be inter- 
esting ; his colour black and white, his shape leggy and 
clumsy ; altogether what Sydney Smith would have called 
an extraordinarily ordinary dog : and, as I have said, not 
even greatly ugly, or, as the Aberdonians have it, bonnz'e 
wi" ill-fauredness. My brother William found him the 
centre of attraction to a multitude of small black-guards 
who were drowning him slowly in Lochend Loch, doing 
their best to lengthen out the process, and secure the 
greatest amount of fun with the nearest approach to death. 
Even then Toby showed his great intellect by pretending 
to be dead, and thus gaining time and an inspiration. 
William bought him for twopence, and as he had it not, 
the boys accompanied him to Pilrig Street, when I hap- 
pened to meet him, and giving the twopence to the biggest 
boy, had the satisfaction of seeing a general engagement 
of much seventy, during which the twopence disappeared ; 
one penny going off with a very small and swift boy, 
and the other vanishing hopelessly into the grating of a 
drain. 

Toby was for weeks in the house unbeknown to any 
one but ourselves two and the cook, and from my grand- 
mother's love of tidiness and hatred of dogs and of dirt, I 
believe she would have expelled " him whom we saved 
from drowning," had not he, in his straightforward way, 
walked into my father's bedroom one night when he was 
bathing his feet, and introduced himself with a wag of hi§ 




Coursing 



ROUND THE ROOM, UPSETTING MY FATHER' 

books." — Page 22. 



C0b£. 21 

tail, intimating a general willingness to be happy. My 
father laughed most heartily, and at last Toby, having got 
his way to his bare feet, and having begun to lick his soles 
and between his toes with his small rough tongue, my 
father gave such an unwonted shout of laughter, that we — 
grandmother, sisters, and all of us — went in. Grand- 
mother might argue with all her energy and skill, but as 
surely as the pressure of Tom Jones' infantile fist upon 
Mr. Allworthy's forefinger undid all the arguments of his 
sister, so did Toby's tongue and fun prove too many for 
grandmother's eloquence. I somehow think Toby must 
have been up to all this, for I think he had a peculiar love 
for my father ever after, and regarded grandmother from 
that hour with a careful and cool eye. 

Toby, when full grown, was a strong coarse dog ; coarse 
in shape, in countenance, in hair, and in manner. I used 
to think that, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, he 
must have been, or been going to be, a Gilmerton carter. 
He was of the bull-terrier variety, coarsened through 
much mongrelism and a dubious and varied ancestry. 
His teeth were good, and he had a large skull, and a rich 
bark as of a dog three times his size, and a tail which I 
never saw equalled — indeed it was a isa\ per se ; it was of 
immense girth and not short, equal throughout like a 
policeman's baton ; the machinery for working it was of 
great power, and acted in a way, as far as I have been able 
to discover, quite original. We called it his ruler. 

When he wished to get into the house, he first whined 
gently, then growled, then gave a sharp bark, and then 
came a resounding, mighty stroke which shook the house ; 
this, after much study and watching, we found was done 
by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon 
the door, with a sudden and vigorous stroke ; it was quite 
a tour de force or a coup de queue, and he was perfect in 
it at once, his first bang authoritative, having been as 
masterly and telling as his last. 

With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog of great 
moral excellence — affectionate, faithful, honest up to his 
light, with an odd humor as peculiar and as strong as his 
tail. My father, in his reserved way, was very fond of 
him, and there must have been very funny scenes with 



22 Iborae £ubsectv>ae. 

them, for we heard bursts of laughter issuing from his 
study when they two were by themselves : there was some- 
thing in him that took that grave, beautiful, melancholy 
face. One can fancy him in the midst of his books, and 
sacred work and thoughts, pausing and looking at the 
secular Toby, who was looking out for a smile to begin 
his rough fun, and about to end by coursing and gnrri7i 
round the room, upsetting my father's books, laid out on 
the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at times, as 
he stood watching him — and off his guard and shaking 
with laughter. Toby had always a great desire to accom- 
pany my father up to town ; this my father's good taste 
and sense of dignity, besides his fear of losing his friend 
(a vain fear !), forbade, and as the decision of character of 
each was great and nearly equal, it was often a drawn 
game. Toby, ultimately, by making it his entire object, 
triumphed. He usually was nowhere to be seen on my 
father leaving ; he however saw him, and lay in wait at 
the head of the street, and up Leith Walk he kept him in 
view from the opposite side like a detective, and then, 
when he knew it was hopeless to hound him home, he 
crossed unblushingly over, and joined company, excessively 
rejoiced of course. 

One Sunday he had gone with him to church, and left 
him at the vestry door. The second psalm was given 
out, and my father was sitting back in the pulpit, when 
the door at its back, up which he came from the vestry, 
was seen to move, and gently open, then, after a long 
pause, a black shining snout pushed its way steadily 
into the congregation, and was followed by Toby's entire 
body. He looked somewhat abashed, but snuffing his 
friend, he advanced as if on thin ice, and not seeing him, 
put his fore-legs on the pulpit, and behold there he was. 
his own familiar chum. I watched all this, and anything 
more beautiful than his look of happiness, of comfort, of 
entire ease when he beheld his friend — the smoothing 
down of the anxious ears, the swing of gladness of that 
mighty tail, — I don't expect soon to see. My father 
quietly opened the door, and Toby was at his feet and 
invisible to all but himself ; had he sent old George 
Peaston, the " minister's man," to put him out, Toby 




Even a heggar 



COULD SEND HIM OFF HOWLING. 

^Page 23. 



G0b£. 23 

would probably have shown his teeth, and astonished 
George. He slunk home as soon as he could, and never 
repeated that exploit. 

I never saw in any other dog the sudden transition 
from discretion, not to say abject cowardice, to blazing 
and permanent valour. From his earliest years he 
showed a general meanness of blood, inherited from 
many generations of starved, bekicked, and down-trodden 
forefathers and mothers, resulting in a condition of in- 
tense abjectness in all matters of personal fear ; anybody, 
even a beggar, by &gowl and a threat of eye, could send 
him off howling by anticipation, with that mighty tail 
between his legs. But it was not always so to be, and I 
had the privilege of seeing courage, reasonable, absolute, 
and for life, spring up in Toby at once, as did Athene 
from the skull of Jove. It happened thus : — 

Toby was in the way of hiding his culinary bones in 
the small gardens before his own and the neighbouring 
doors. Mr. Scrymgeour, two doors off, a bulky, choleric, 
red-haired, red-faced man — torvo vultu— was, by law of 
contrast, a great cultivator of flowers, and he had often 
scowled Toby into all but non-existence by a stamp of 
his foot and a glare of his eye. One day his gate being 
open, in walks Toby with a huge bone, and making a hole 
where Scrymgeour had two minutes before been planting 
some precious slip, the name of which on paper and on a 
stick Toby made very light of, substituted his bone, and 
was engaged covering it, or thinking he was covering it 
up with his shovelling nose (a very odd relic of paradise 
in the dog), when S. spied him through the inner glass- 
door, and was out upon him like the Assyrian, with a 
terrific gowl. I watched them. Instantly Toby made 
straight at him with a roar too, and an eye more torve 
than Scrymgeour's, who, retreating without reserve, fell 
prostrate, there is reason to believe, in his own lobby. 
Toby contented himself with proclaiming his victory at 
the door, and returning finished his bone-planting at his 
leisure ; the enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass- 
door, glaring at him. 

From this moment Toby was an altered dog. Pluck 
at first sig-ht was lord of all: from that time dated his 



24 Ifoorae Subsecivae. 

first tremendous deliverance of tail against the door, 
which we called " come listen to my tail." That very 
evening he paid a visit to Leo, next door's dog, a big, 
tyrannical bully and coward, which its master thought a 
Newfoundland, but whose pedigree we knew better ; this 
brute continued the same system of chronic extermina- 
tion which was interrupted at Lochend, — having Toby 
down among his feet, and threatening him with instant, 
death two or three times a day. To him Toby paid a 
visit that very evening, down into his den, and walked 
about, as much as to say "Come on, Macduff!" but 
Macduff did not come on, and henceforward there was 
an armed neutrality, and they merely stiffened up and 
made their backs rigid, pretended each not to see the 
other, walking solemnly round, as is the manner of 
dogs. Toby worked his new-found faculty thoroughly, 
but with discretion. He killed cats, astonished beggars, 
kept his own in his own garden against all comers, and 
came off victorious in several well-fought battles ; but he 
was not quarrelsome or foolhardy. It was very odd how 
his carriage changed, holding his head up, and how much 
pleasanter he was at home. To my father, next to 
William, who was his Humane Society man, he remained 
stanch. He had a great dislike to all things abnormal, 
as the phrase now is. A young lady of his acquaintance 
was calling one day, and, relating some distressing events, 
she became hysterical. Of this Toby did not approve, 
and sallying from under my father's chair, attacked his 
friend, barking fiercely, and cut short the hysterics better 
than any sal volatile or valerian. He then made abject 
apologies to the patient, and slunk back to his chair. 

And what of his end ? for the misery of dogs is that 
they die so soon, or, as Sir Walter says, it is well they 
do ; for if they lived as long as a Christian, and we liked 
them in proportion, and they then died, he said that was 
a thing he could not stand. 

His exit was lamentable, and had a strange poetic or 
tragic relation to his entrance. My father was out of 
town ; I was away in England. Whether it was that the 
absence of my father had relaxed his power of moral 
restraint, or whether through neglect of the servant he 




0>****r i- 





Instantly Toby made straight at him with a roar." — Page 23. 



had been desperately hungry, or most likely both being 
true, Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold leg 
of mutton, on which he had made an ample meal ;* this 
he was endeavouring to plant as of old, in the hope of its 
remaining undiscovered till to-morrow's hunger returned, 
the whole shank-bone sticking up unmistakably. This 
was seen by our excellent and Rhadamanthine grand- 
mother, who pronounced sentence on the instant ; and 
next clay, as William was leaving for the High School, 
did he in the sour morning, through an easterly kaur, 
behold him " whom he saved from drowning," and 
whom, with better results than in the case of Launce and 
Crabb, he had taught, as if one should say " thus would 
I teach a dog," — dangling by his own chain from his own 
lamp-post, one of his hind feet just touching the pave- 
ment, and his body preternaturally elongated. 

William found him dead and warm, and falling in with 
the milk-boy at the head of the street, questioned him, 
and discovered that he was the executioner, and had got 
twopence, he — Toby's every morning's crony, who met 
him and accompanied him up the street, and licked the 
outside of his can — had, with an eye to speed and con- 
venience, and a want of taste, not to say principle and 
affection, horrible still to think of, suspended Toby's 
animation beyond all hope. William instantly fell upon 
him, upsetting his milk and cream, and gave him a 
thorough licking, to his own intense relief ; and, being 
late, he got from Pyper, who was a martinet, the custom- 
ary palmies, which he bore with something approach- 
ing to pleasure. So died Toby ; my father said little, but 
he missed and mourned his friend. 

There is reason to believe that by one of those curious 
intertwistings of existence, the milk-boy was that one of 
the drowning party who got the penny of the twopence. 



* Toby was in the state of the shepherd boy whom George Webster 
met in Glenshee, and asked, " My man, were you ever fou*?" "Ay 
Speaking slowly, as if remembering — "Ay, aince." " What on ?" 
l> Cauld mutton !" 



26 f)orae Subsecivae* 

" 1 
WYLIE. 

Our next friend was an exquisite shepherd's dog; fleet, 
thin-flanked, dainty, and handsome as a small greyhound, 
with all the grace of silky waving black and tan hair. 
We got her thus. Being then young and keen botanists, 
and full of the knowledge and love of Tweedside, having 
been on every hilltop from Muckle Mendic to Hundles- 
hope and the Lee Pen, and having fished every water 
from Tarth to the Leithen, we discovered early in spring 
that young Stewart, author of an excellent book on 
natural history, a young man of great promise and early 
death, had found the Buxbauinia aphylla, a beautiful 
and odd-looking moss, west of Newbie heights, in the 
very month we were that moment in. We resolved to 
start next day. We walked to Peebles, and then up Hay- 
stoun Glen to the cottage of Adam Cairns, the aged 
shepherd of the Newbie hirsel, of whom we knew, and 
who knew of us from his daughter, Nancy Cairns, a 
servant with Uncle Aitken of Callands. We found our 
way up the burn with difficulty, as the evening was get- 
ting dark ; and on getting near the cottage heard them 
at worship. We got in, and made ourselves known, and 
got a famous tea, and such cream and oat cake ! — old 
Adam looking on us as " clean dementit" to come out for 
"a bit moss," which, however, he knew, and with some 
pride said he would take us in the morning to the place. 
As we were going into a box bed for the night, two young 
men came in, and said they were " gaun to burn the 
water." Off we set. It was a clear, dark, starlight frosty 
night. They had their leisters and tar torches, and it 
was something worth seeing — the wild flame, the young 
fellows striking the fish coming to the light — how splen- 
did they looked with the light on their scales, coming out 
of the darkness — the stumblings and quenchings suddenly 
of the lights, as the torch-bearer fell into a deep pool. 
We got home past midnight, and slept as we seldom 
sleep now. In the morning Adam, who had been long 
risen, and up the Hope with his dog, when he found we 
had wakened, told us there were four inches of snow, and 




'-V. 



mviic 27 

we soon saw it was too true. So we had to go home 
without our cryptogamic prize. 

It turned out that Adam, who was an old man and 
frail, and had made some money, was going at Whitsun- 
day to leave, and live with his son in Glasgow. We had 
been admiring the beauty and gentleness and perfect 
shape of Wylie, the finest collie I ever saw, and said, 
" What are you going to do with Wylie?" " 'Deed," says 
he, " I hardly ken. I canna think o' selling her, though 
she's worth four pound, and she'll no like the toim." I 
said, " Would you let me have her?" and Adam, looking 
at her fondly, — she came up instantly to him, and made 
of him — said, "Ay, I wull, if ye'll be gude to her;" and 
it was settled that when Adam left for Glasgow she 
should be sent into Albany Street by the carrier. 

She came, and was at once taken to all our hearts — 
even grandmother liked her ; and though she was often 
pensive, as if thinking of her master and her work on the 
hills, she made herself at home, and behaved in all respects 
like a lady. When out with me, if she saw sheep in the 
streets or road, she got quite excited, and helped the 
work, and was curiously useful, the being so making her 
wonderfully happy. And so her little life went on, never 
doing wrong, always blythe and kind and beautiful. But 
some months after she came, there was a mystery about 
her : every Tuesday evening she disappeared : we tried to 
watch her, but in vain, she was always off by nine P.M., 
and was away all night, coming back next day wearied 
and all over mud, as if she had travelled far. She slept 
all next day. This went on for some months, and we 
could make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, she looked 
at us wistfully when she came in, as if she would have 
told us if she could, and was especially fond, though 
tired. 

Well, one day I was walking across the Grass market, 
with Wylie at my heels, when two shepherds started, and 
looking at her, one said, " That's her; that's the wonder- 
fu' wee bitch that naebody kens." I asked him what he 



28 Iborae Subsecivae. 

meant, and he told me that for months past she had 
made her appearance by the first daylight at the 
" buchts" or sheep-pens in the cattle-market, and worked 
incessantly, and to excellent purpose, in helping the 
shepherds to get their sheep and lambs in. The man 
said with a sort of transport, " She's a perfect meeracle ; 
flees about like a speerit, and never gangs wrang ; wears 
but never grups, and beats a' oor dowgs. She's a per- 
fect meeracle ; and as soople as a maukin." Then he 
related how they all knew her, and said, " There's that 
wee fell yin ; we'll get them in noo." They tried to 
coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she was gentle, 
but off ; and for many a day " that wee fell yin" was 
spoken of by these rough fellows. She continued this 
amateur work till she died, which she did in peace. 

It is very touching the regard the south-country shep- 
herds have to their dogs. Professor Syme one day, 
many years ago, when living in Forres Street, was look- 
ing out of his window, and he saw a young shepherd 
striding down North Charlotte Street, as if making for 
his house ; it was midsummer. The man had his dog 
with him, and Mr. Syme noticed that he followed the 
dog, and not it him, though he contrived to steer for the 
house. He came, and was ushered into his room ; he 
wished advice about some ailment, and Mr. Syme saw 
that he had a bit of twine round the dog's neck, which he 
let drop out of his hand when he entered the room. He 
asked him the meaning of this, and he explained that the 
magistrates had issued a mad-dog proclamation, com- 
manding all dogs to be muzzled op led on pain of death. 
" And why do you go about as I saw you did before you 
came in to me?" "Oh," said he, looking awkward, " I 
didna want Birkie to ken he was tied." Where will you 
find truer courtesy and finer feeling ? He didn't want to 
hurt Birkie's feelings. 

Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new story of 
these wise sheep-dogs. A butcher from Inverness had 
purchased some sheep at Dingwall, and giving them in 
charge to his dog, left the road. The dog drove them 
on, till coming to a toll, the toll-wife stood before the 



IRab. 29 

drove, demanding her clues. The dog looked at her, and, 
jumping on her back, crossed his forelegs over her arms. 
The sheep passed through, and the dog took his place 
behind them, and went on his way. 

RAB. 

Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little right to 
speak of him as one of " our dogs ;" but nobody will be 
sorry to hear anything of that noble fellow. Ailie, the 
day or two after the operation, when she was well and 
cheery, spoke about him, and said she would tell me fine 
stories when I came out, as I promised to do, to see her 
at Howgate. I asked her how James came to get him. 
She told me that one day she saw James coming down 
from Leadburn with the cart ; he had been away west, 
getting eggs and butter, cheese and hens, for Edinburgh. 
She saw he was in some trouble, and on looking, there 
was what she thought a young calf being dragged, or, as 
she called it, " haurled," at the back of the cart. James 
was in front, and when he came up, very warm and very 
angry, she saw that there was a huge young dog tied to 
the cart, struggling and pulling back with all his might, 
and as she said, " lookin' fearsome." James, who was 
out of breath and temper, being past his time, explained 
to Ailie, that this " muckle brute o' a whalp" had been 
worrying sheep, and terrifying everybody up at Sir 
George Montgomery's at Macbie Hill, and that Sir 
George had ordered him to be hanged, which, however, 
was sooner said than done, as " the thief" showed his 
intentions of dying hard. James came up just as Sir 
George had sent for his gun ; and as the dog had more 
than once shown a liking for him, he said he " wad gie 
him a chance ;" and so he tied him to his cart. Young 
Rab, fearing some mischief, had been entering a series of 
protests all the way, and nearly strangling himself to 
spite James and Jess, besides giving Jess more than usual 
to do. " I wish I had let Sir George pit that charge into 
him, the thrawn brute," said James. But Ailie had seen 
that in his fore-leg there was a splinter of wood, which 
he had likely got when objecting to be hanged, and that 



30 Iborae Subsecivae. 

he was miserably lame. So she got James to leave him 
with her, and go straight into Edinburgh. She gave him 
water, and by her woman's wit got his lame paw under a 
door, so that he couldn't suddenly get at her, then with a 
quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter, and put in 
an ample meal. She went in some time after, taking no 
notice of him, and he came limping up, and laid his great 
jaws in her lap : from that moment they were " chief," as 
she said, James finding him mansuete and civil when he 
returned. 

She said it w r as Rab's habit to make his appearance 
exactly half an hour before his master, trotting in full of 
importance, as if to say, "He's all right, he'll be here." 
One morning James came without him. He had left 
Edinburgh very early, and in coming near Auchindinny, 
at a lonely part of the road, a man sprang out on him, 
and demanded his money. James, who was a cool hand, 
said, " Weel-a-weel, let me get it," and stepping back he 
said to Rab, " Speak till him, my man." In an instant 
Rab was standing over him, threatening strangulation if 
he stirred. James pushed on, leaving Rab in charge ; he 
looked back, and saw that every attempt to rise was sum- 
marily put down. As he was telling Ailie the story, up 
came Rab with that great swing of his. It turned out 
that the robber was a Howgate lad, the worthless son of 
a neighbour, and Rab knowing him had let him cheaply 
off ; the only thing, which was seen by a man from a 
field, was, that before letting him rise, he quenched {pro 
tempore) the fire of the eyes of the ruffian, by a familiar 
Gulliverian application of Hydraulics, which I need not 
further particularize. James, who did not know the way 
to tell an untruth, or embellish anything, told me this as 
what he called " a fact positeevely" 

WASP 

Was a dark brindled bull-terrier, as pure in blood as 
Cruiser or Wild Dayrell. She was brought by my 
brother from Otley, in the West Riding. She was very 
handsome, fierce, and gentle, with a small, compact, 
finely-shaped head, and a pair of wonderful eyes — as full 




She i-lungeu in, holding up her burden." Page 31 



Tlfllasp. 31 

of fire and of softness as Grisi's ; indeed she had to my 
eye a curious look of that wonderful genius — at once 
wild and fond. It was a fine sight to see her on the 
prowl across Bowden Moor, now cantering with her nose 
down, now gathered up on the top of a dyke, and with 
erect ears, looking across the wild like a moss-trooper 
out on business, keen and fell. She could do everything 
it became a dog to do, from killing an otter or a pole-cat, 
to watching and playing with a baby, and was as docile 
to her master as she was surly to all else. She was not 
quarrelsome, but " being in," she would have pleased 
Polonius as much, as in being "ware of entrance." She 
was never beaten, and she killed on the spot several of 
the country bullies who came out upon her when follow- 
ing her master in his rounds. She generally sent them 
off howling with one snap, but if this was not enough, 
she made an end of it. 

But it was as a mother that she shone ; and to see the 
gipsy, Hagar-like creature nursing her occasional Ishmael 
— playing with him, and fondling him all over, teaching 
his teeth to war, and with her eye and the curl of her lip 
daring any one but her master to touch him, was like see- 
ing Grisi watching her darling " Gennaro" who so little 
knew why and how much she loved him. 

Once when she had three pups, one of them died. For 
two days and nights she gave herself up to trying to bring 
it to life — licking it, and turning it over and over, growling 
over it, and all but worrying it to awake it. She paid no 
attention to the living two, gave them no milk, flung them 
away with her teeth, and would have killed them, had they 
been allowed to remain with her. She was as one possessed, 
and neither ate, nor drank, nor slept, was heavy and miser- 
able with her milk, and in such a state of excitement that 
no one could remove the dead pup. 

Early on the third day she was seen to take the pup in 
her mouth, and start across the fields towards the Tweed, 
striding like a race-horse — she plunged in, holding up her 
burden, and at the middle of the stream dropped it, and 



32 Iborae Subsecivae. 

swam swiftly ashore : then she stood and watched the 
little dark lump floating away, bobbing- up and down with 
the current, and losing it at last far down, she made her 
way home, sought out the living two, devoured them with 
her love, carried them one by one to her lair, and gave 
herself up wholly to nurse them ; you can fancy her men- 
tal and bodily happiness and relief when they were pulling 
away — and theirs. 

On one occasion my brother had lent her to a woman 
who lived in a lonely house, and whose husband was away 
for a time. She was a capital watch. One day an Italian 
with his organ came — first begging, then demanding 
money — showing that he knew she was alone, and that he 
meant to help himself, if she didn't. She threatened to 
" lowse the dowg ;" but as this was Greek to him, he 
pushed on. She had just time to set Wasp at him. It 
was very short work. She had him by the throat, pulled 
him and his organ down with a heavy crash, the organ 
giving a ludicrous sort of cry of musical pain. Wasp, 
thinking this was from some creature within, possibly a 
whittrct, left the ruffian, and set to work tooth and nail 
on the box. Its master slunk off, and with mingled fury 
and thankfulness, watched her disembowelling his only 
means of an honest living. The woman good-naturedly 
took her off, and signed to the miscreant to make himself 
and his remains scarce. This he did with a scowl ; and 
was found in the evening in the village, telling a series of 
lies to the watchmaker, and bribing him with a shilling to 
mend his pipes — " his kist o'whussels." 

JOCK 

Was insane from his birth ; at first an amabilis znsania, 
but ending in mischief and sudden death. He was an 
English terrier, fawn-coloured ; his mother's name Vamp 
(Vampire), and his father's Demon. He was more prop- 
erly daft than mad ; his courage, muscularity, and prodig- 
ious animal spirits making him insufferable, and never 
allowing one sane feature of himself any chance. No 
sooner was the street-door open, than he w T as throttling 
the first dog passing, bringing upon himself and me end- 




He would think nothing of leaping through the TEA-THINGS.'" 

—Page 33. 



DucbtC. 33 

less grief. Cats he tossed up into the air, and crushed 
their spines as they fell. Old ladies he upset by jumping 
over their heads ; old gentlemen by running- between their 
legs. At home, he would think nothing of leaping through 
the tea things, upsetting the urn, cream, etc., and at din- 
ner the same sort of thing. I believe if I could have found 
time to thrash him sufficiently, and let him be a year older, 
we might have kept him ; but having upset an Earl when 
the streets were muddy, I had to part with him. He was 
sent to a clergyman in the island of Westray, one of the 
Orkneys; and though he had a wretched voyage, and was 
as sick as any dog, he signalized the first moment of his 
arrival at the manse, by strangling an ancient monkey, or 
" P u ggy>" tne P et °f tne minister, — who was a bachelor, 
— and the wonder of the island. Jock henceforward took 
to evil courses, extracting the kidneys of the best young 
rams, driving whole hirsels down steep places into the sea, 
till at last all the guns of Westray were pointed at him, as 
he stood at bay under a huge rock on the shore, and blew 
him into space. I always regret his end, and blame my- 
self for sparing the rod. Of 

DUCHIE 

I have already spoken ; her oddities were endless. We 
had and still have a dear friend, — " Cousin Susan " she is 
called by many who are not her cousins — a perfect lady, 
and, though hopelessly deaf, as gentle and contented as 
ever Griselda with the full use of her ears ; quite as great 
a pet, in a word, of us all as Duchie was of ours. One 
day we found her mourning the death of a cat, a great 
playfellow of the Sputchard's, and her small Grace was 
with us when we were condoling with her, and we saw 
that she looked very wistfully at Duchie. I wrote on the 
slate, " Would you like her? '* and she through her tears 
said, " You know that would never do." But it did do. 
We left Duchie that very night, and though she paid us 
frequent visits, she was Cousin Susan's for life. I fear 
indulgence dulled her moral sense. She was an immense 
happiness to her mistress, whose silent and lonely days 
she made glad with her oddity and mirth. And yet the 



34 Iborea Subsecivae. 

small creature, old, toothless, and blind, domineered over 
her gentle friend — threatening" her sometimes if she pre- 
sumed to remove the small Fury from the inside of her 
own bed, into which it pleased her to creep. Indeed, I 
believe it is too true, though it was inferred only, that her 
mistress and friend spent a great part of a winter night in 
trying to coax her dear little ruffian out of the centre of 
the bed. One day the cook asked what she would have 
for dinner : " I would like a muttonchop, but then, you 
know, Duchie likes minced veal better ! " The faithful 
and happy little creature died at a great age, of natural 
decay. 

But time would fail me, and I fear patience would fail 
you, my reader, were I to tell you of Crab, of JOHN Pym, 
of PUCK, and of the rest. Crab, the Mugger's dog, 
grave, with deep-set, melancholy eyes, as of a nobleman 
(says the Master of Ravenswood) in disguise, large vis- 
aged, shaggy, indomitable, come of the pure Piper Allan's 
breed. This Piper Allan, you must know, lived some two 
hundred years ago in Cocquet Water, piping like Homer, 
from place to place, and famous not less for his dog than 
for his music, his news, and his songs. The earl of 
Northumberland, of his day, offered the piper a small 
farm for his dog, but after deliberating for a day, Allan 
said, " Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum ; what wud a 
piper do wi' a ferum ? "* From this dog descended 



* I have to thank cordially the writer of the following letters. They are 
from the pen of Mr. Rohert White, Newcastle-on-Tyne, author of the 
History of the Battle of Otterhurn, and one of the last of the noble band of 
literary and local antiquarians of which " Muncaster " has so long been the 
seat, up to all traditional lore and story of the stout-hearted Border. 

" In the second series of your Horce Subseciva. p. 162, you allude to the 
dog Crab being come of the pure ' Piper Allan's breed, and say that the 
said ' Piper Allan lived some two hundred years ago in Cocquet (Coquet) 
Water.' 

" In Northumberland and over the Borders, James Allan is generally 
known as Piper Allan. He was born about 1733, and after leading a 
strange life, towards his seventieth year he stole a horse at Gateshead in 
the county of Durham, and took it to Lilliesleaf in Roxburghshire, where 
he was apprehended and sent to Durham jail. He was found guilty, and 
received sentence of death, but was reprieved, and afterwards had his 
punishment mitigated to perpetual imprisonment. After being confined 
for nearly seven years, his health failed, and he was removed to the 
House of Correction, where he lived about five months, and died at 
Durham, November 13th, 1810, aged about 77 years. 




'Trying to coax hkr dear little ruffian out of the centre ok 

the bed." — Page 34. 



SHicbte. 35 

Davidson (the original Dandie Dinmont) of Hyndlee's 
breed, and Crab could count his kin up to him. He had 



" Some time ago in Willis's Current Notes, which are now discontinued, 
an original letter of Sir Walter Scott was printed, in which is the following 
paragraph : — 

" ' I should be glad to see a copy of the Alnwick work upon Allan, whom 
I have often seen and heard, particularly at the Kelso Races. He was an 
admirable piper, yet a desperate reprobate. The last time I saw him he 
was in absolute beggary, and had behaved himself so ill at my uncle's 
(Thomas Scott of Monklaw) house, that the old gentleman, himself a 
most admirable piper, would not on any account give him quarters, 
though I interceded earnestly for him, "the knave," as Davie tells 
Justice Shallow, "'being my very good friend." He was then quite like a 
pauper, with his wife, and an ass, in the true gipsy fashion. When I 
first saw him at Kelso Races, he wore the Northumberland livery, a blue 
coat, with a silver crescent on his arm.' (Allan was piper to Her Grace 
the Duchess of Northumberland.) 

" The father of Jamie Allan was named Willie, and he also was a good 
piper, besides being an excellent fisher and a keen otter-hunter. He had 
two favourite dogs for the latter sport, — Charley and Phcebe, — and such 
was the wisdom of the former that, he used to say, ' If Charley could 
speak he would sell the otter's skin.' Probably Crab may have been of 
this kind. 

" James Davidson of Hindlee was a great fox hunter, and his breed of 
terriers — the pepper-and-mustard class — were the best overall the country. 
I have seen the genuine breed long ago at Ned Dunn's of the Whitelee at 
the head of Redesdale. Among common dogs they were something like 
the Black Dwarf among men, long-bodied animals with strong short legs, 
wiry haired, and at the first, look not unlike a low four-footed stool, such 
as I have seen in houses in the south of Scotland forty years ago. They 
were sent in to the fox when he was earthed, and fought him there. They 
seemed at first when out of doors to be shy. timid things, and would have 
slunk away from a fierce collie dog, but if he seized one of them, and the 
blood of the little creature got up, it just took a hold of him in a biting 
place, and held on, never quitting till he found to his cost he had caught a 
tartar." 

" I am now convinced, from what I have gleaned of the life of James 
Allan, and a notice in Mackenzie's History of Northumberland, that your 
Piper Allan was William, the father of James. He was born at Belling- 
ham in 1704. He was nearly six feet high, of a ruddy complexion, and 
had much shrewdness, wit, and independence of mind. In early life he 
became a good player on the bagpipes. He mended pots and pans, made 
spoons, baskets, and besoms, and was a keen and excellent fisher. In the 
Valley of Coquet he married a gipsy girl, named Betty, who bore him six 
children, and James was the youngest save one ; but she died in the prime 
of life. He was married a second time to an unfortunate daughter of a 
Presbyterian minister. 

"Among his other pursuits, he excelled especially in the hunting of 
otters, and kept eight or ten dogs for that particular sport. Please turn to 
my previous letter, and in the passage, ' if Charley could speak,' etc., dele 
Charley and insert Peachem. This dog was Will's chief favourite, and 
such confidence had he in the animal, that when hunting he would at times 
observe, ' When my Peachem gi'es mouth, I durst always sell the otter's 
skin.' Charley was also an excellent dog. Lord Ravensworth once em- 



36 Iborea Subsecfvae. 

a great look of the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, and 
had much of his energy and wecht ; had there been a 



ployed Willie to kill the otters that infested his pond at Eslington Hall, 
which he soon accomplished ; and on going away, the steward, Mr. Bell, 
offered, in his Lordship's name, to buy Charley at the Piper's own price. 
Will turned round very haughtily, and exclaimed, ' By the wuns, his hale 
estate canna buy Charley ! 

" He was a capital piper, and composed two popular tunes, ' We'll a' to 
the Coquet and Woo,' and 'Salmon Tails up the Water.' These I never 
heard, and probably they may be lost. When his end drew near, he was 
something like Rob Roy in his neglect of religious impressions. When 
reminded that he was dying, he exclaimed, ' By Jing, I'll get foul play, 
then, to dee before my billie, wha's ten years aulder ! ' When still closer 
pressed to ponder on his condition, he said, ' Gi'e me my pipes, and I'll 
play ye " Dorrington Lads" yet.' Thus he exhausted his last breath in 
playing his favourite strain. He died 18th February 1779, aged seventy- 
five years, and was buried in Rothbury Churchyard. His son James was 
born at Hepple, in Coquetdale, March 1734. 

" The following verses on old Will are in the ' Lay of the Reedwater 
Minstrel :' — 

"A stalwart Tinkler wight was he, 

And weel could mend a pot or pan ; 
And deftly Wull could thraw a flee, 
An' neatly weave the willow-wan'. 

"An' sweetly wild were Allan's strains, 
An' mony a jig an' reel he blew ; 
Wi' merry lilts he charm 'd the swains, 
Wi' barbed spear the otter slew. 

"Nae mair he'll scan, wi' anxious eye, 
The sandy shores of winding Reed ; 



Nae mair he'll tempt the finny fry. 
The king o' Tinklers, Allan's 



lg o' Tinklers, Allan's dead. 

11 Nae mair at Mell or Merry Night 

The cheering bagpipes Wull shall blaw ; 
Nae mair the village throng delight, 
Grim death has laid the minstrel law. 

" Now trouts, exulting, cut the wave ; 
Triumphant see the otter glide, 
Their deadly foe lies in his grave. 
Charley and Phcebe by his side. 

I add another bit from Mr. White, too characteristic of that mixture of 
kindness and cruelty, of tenderness and pluck, — Dandie Dinmont, — and 
of the exercise, called one-sidedly " sport." It ends happily, which is more 
than the big store-farmer wished : — 

" The mother of the far-famed Peppers and Mustards was a dark- 
coloured, rough-haired bitch of the name of Tar. Davidson wanted a cat 
from some of the cottages at a distance from Hindlee, that he might have 
the young dogs tried upon it. One of his shepherds chanced to call at 
Andrew Telfer's house (the grandfather, I believe, of my late friend), 





Running along the top thereof, with the dogs in full cry 
AFIEK hek." — Page 37. 



Bucbfe. 37 

dog House of Commons, Crab would have spoken as 
seldom, and been as great a power in the house, as the 
formidable and faithful time-out-of-mind member for 
Coventry. 

John Pym was a smaller dog than Crab, of more 
fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner's famous 
SHEM, whose father and brother are said to have been 
found dead in a drain into which the hounds had run a 
fox. It had three entrances ; the father was put in at 
one hole, the son at another, and speedily the fox bolted 
out at the third, but no appearance of the little terriers, 
and, on digging, they were found dead, locked in each 
other's jaws ; they had met, and it being dark, and there 
being no time for explanations, they had throttled each 
other. John was made of the same sort of stuff, and was 
as combative and victorious as his great namesake, and 
not unlike him in some of his not so creditable qualities. 
He must, I think, have been related to a certain dog to 
whom " life was full o' sairiousness," but in John's case 
the same cause produced an opposite effect. John was 
gay and light-hearted, even when there was not " enuff o* 
fechtin," which, however, seldom happened, there being 
a market every week in Melrose, and John appearing 

where he saw baudrons sitting on the end of a dresser near the door ; and 
the house being low and dark, he swept her into his plaid-neuk on going 
out, and carried her home. Next morning she was introduced to a covered 
drain, which ran across the road, the said drain being closed up at one 
end, whereby she was compelled to give battle to her foes. A young 
terrier was the first to oppose her, and paid for its rashness by retreating 
from the drain with the skin almost torn from its nose. Another of the 
same age met with the same punishment, and Davidson, considerably 
irritated, brought forward Tar, the old dame, who, by her age and expe- 
rience, he considered, would be more than a match for the cat. There 
was sore fighting for a time, till again Puss was victorious, and Tar 
withdrew from the conflict in such a condition that her master exclaimed, 
1 Confoond the cat, she's tumblt an e'e oot o' the bitch ! ' which indeed 
was the case. ' Tak awa the stanes frae the Uipo' the cundy,' said Davidson, 
1 and we'll ha*e her worried at ance.' The stones were removed, and out 
leapt the cat in the middle of her enemies. Fortunately for her, however, 
it happened that a stone wall was continued up the side of the road, which 
she instantly mounted, and, running along the top thereof, with the dogs 
in full cry after her she speedily reached a plantation, and eluded all 
pursuit. No trace of h:r could be discovered ; and the next time the shep- 
herd called at Andrew Teller's house, my lady was seated on the dresser, 
as demure as if nothing in her whole life had ever disturbed her tran- 
quillity." 



38 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

most punctually at the cross to challenge all comers, and 
being short-legged, he inveigled every dog into an en- 
gagement by first attacking him, and then falling down 
on his back, in which posture he latterly fought and won 
all his battles. 

What can I say of Puck* — the thoroughbred — the 
simple-hearted — the purloiner of eggs warm from the 
hen — the flutterer of all manner of Volscians — the 
bandy-legged, dear, old, dilapidated buffer ? I got him 
from my brother, and only parted with him because 
William's stock was gone. He had to the end of life 
a simplicity which was quite touching. One summer day 
— a dog-day — when all dogs found straying were hauled 
away to the police-office, and killed off in twenties with 
strychnine, I met Puck trotting along Princes Street with 
a policeman, a rope round his neck, he looking up in the 
fatal, official, but kindly countenance in the most artless 
and cheerful manner, wagging his tail and trotting along. 
In ten minutes he would have been in the next world ; for 
I am one of those who believe dogs have a next world, and 
why not? Puck ended his days as the best dog in Rox- 
burghshire. Placide qiiiescas ! 

DICK 

Still lives, and long may he live ! As he was never born, 
possibly he may never die ; be it so, he will miss us when 
we are gone. I could say much of him, but agree with 
the lively and admirable Dr. Jortin, when, in his dedi- 
cation of his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History to the 
then (1752) Archbishop of Canterbury, he excuses him- 

* In The Post* by Stonehenge, an excellent book, there isawoodcut of 
Puck, and " Dr. Wm. Brown's celebrated dog John Pym" is mentioned. 
Their pedigrees are given— here is Puck's, which shows his " strain" is 
of the pure azure blood—" Got by John Pym, out of Tib ; bred by Purves 
of Leaderfoot ; sire. Old Dandie, the famous dog of old John Stoddart 
of Selkirk — dam Whin." How Homeric all this sounds! I cannot help 
quoting what follows— " Sometimes a Dandie pup of a good strain may 
appear not to be game at an early age ; but he should not be parted with 
on this account, because many of them do not show their courage till 
nearly two years old, and then nothing can beat them ; this apparent soft- 
ness arising, as I suspect, from kindness of heart " — a suspicion, my dear 
"Stonehenge," which is true and shows your own "kindness of heart," 
as well as sense. 



£ 



(/ 




2>ich. BO 

self for not following the modern custom of praising his 
Patron, by reminding his Grace " that it was a custom 
amongst the ancients, not to sacrifice to heroes till after 
sunset" I defer my sacrifice till Dick's sun is set. 

I think every family should have a dog ; it is like having 
a perpetual baby ; it is the plaything and crony of the 
whole house. It keeps them all young. All unite upon 
Dick. And then he tells no tales, betrays no secrets, 
never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets 
into debt, never coming down late for breakfast, or 
coining in by his Chubb too early to bed — is always 
ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait for it, and you may, if 
choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of some one else, 
who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, would 
certainly not, as he does, ask your pardon for being 
kicked. 

Never put a collar on your dog — it only gets him 
stolen ; give him only one meal a day, and let that, as 
Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne's wife, would say, be 
" rayther under." Wash him once a week, and always 
wash the soap out ; and let him be carefully combed and 
brushed twice a week. 

By the bye, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns 
who said Man is the god of the Dog — he got it from 
Bacon's Essay on Atheism, or perhaps more truly — Bacon 
had it first. 



40 ) Iborae Subsecivae. 



OUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. 



If any one wants a pleasure that is sure to please, one 
over whjch he needn't growl the sardonic beatitude of 
the great Dean, let him, when the Mercury is at " Fair," 
take the nine A.M. train to the North, and a return 
ticket for Callander, and when he arrives at Stirling, let 
him ask the most obliging and knowing" of station- 
masters to telegraph to " ihe Dreadnought" for a 
carriage to be in waiting. When passing Dunblane 
Cathedral, let him resolve to write to the Scotsman, 
advising the removal of a couple of shabby trees which 
obstruct the view of that beautiful triple end-window 
which Mr. Ruskin and everybody else admires, and by 
the time he has written this letter in his mind, and turned 
the sentences to it, he will find himself at Callander and 
the carriage all ready. Giving the order for the Port of 
Monteith, he will rattle through this hard-featured, and 
to our eye comfortless village, lying ugly amid so much 
grandeur and beauty, and let him stop on the crown of 
the bridge, and fill his eyes with the perfection of the 
view up the Pass of Leny — the Teith lying diffuse and 
asleep, as if its heart were in the Highlands ind it were 
loath to go, the noble Ben Ledi imaged in its broad 
stream. Then let him make las way across a bit of 
pleasant moorland — flushed with maiden-hair and white 
with cotton-grass ; and fragrant with the Orchis conopsza, 
well deserving its epithet odoratissima. 

He will see from the turn of the hillside the Blair of 
Drummond waving with corn and shadowed with rich 
woods, where eighty years ago there was a black peat- 
moss ; and far off, on the horizon, Damyat and the 
Touch Fells; and at his side the little loch of Ruskie, in 
which he may see five Highland cattle, three tawny 



Queen itoarg's CbUfc*(Sarfcen. 41 

brown and two brindled, standing in the still water— 
themselves as still, all except their switching tails and 
winking- ears — the perfect images of quiet enjoyment. 
By this time he will have come in sight of the Lake of 
Monteith, set in its woods, with its magical shadows and 
soft gleams. There is a loveliness, a gentleness and 
peace about it more like " lone St. Mary's Lake," or 
Derwent Water, than of any of its sister lochs. It is 
lovely rather than beautiful, and is a sort of gentle prel- 
ude, in the minor key, to the coming glories and 
intenser charms of Loch Ard and the true Highlands 
beyond. 

You are now at the Port, and have passed the secluded 
and cheerful manse, and the parish kirk with its graves, 
close to the lake, and the proud aisle of the Grahams of 
Gartmore washed by its waves. Across the road is the 
modest little inn, a Fisher's Tryst. On the unruffled 
water lie several islets, plump with rich foliage, brood- 
ing like great birds of calm. You somehow think of 
them as on, not in the lake, or like clouds lying in a 
nether sky — " like ships waiting for the wind." You get 
a coble, and ^yauld old Celt, its master, and are rowed 
across to Irick-mahome, the Isle of Rest. Here you find 
on landing huge Spanish chestnuts, one lying dead, 
others standing stark and peeled, like gigantic antlers, 
and others flourishing in their viridis senectus, and in a 
thicket of wood you see the remains of a monaster}' of 
great beauty, the design and workmanship exquisite. 
You wander through the ruins, overgrown with ferns and 
Spanish filberts, and old fruit-trees, and at the corner of 
the old monkish garden you come upon one of the 
strangest and most touching sights you ever saw — an 
oval space of about eighteen feet by twelve, with the 
remains of a double row of boxwood all round, the plants 
of box being about fourteen feet high, and eight or nine 
inches in diameter, healthy, but plainly of great age. 

What is this? it is called in the guide-books Queen 
Mary's Bower; but besides its being plainly not in the 
least a bower, what could the little Queen, then five years 
old, and " fancy free," do with a bower ? It is plainly, as 
was, we believe, first suggested by our keen-sighted and 



42 fborae 5ubsectv>ae* 

diagnostic Professor of Clinical Surgery,* the Child- 
Queens Garden, with her little walk, and its rows of 
boxwood, left to themselves for three hundred years. 
Yes, without doubt, " here is that first garden of her simple- 
ness." Fancy the little, lovely royal child, with her four 
Marys, her playfellows, her child maids of honour, with 
their little hands and feet, and their innocent and happy 
eyes, pattering about that garden all that time ago, 
laughing, and running, and gardening as only children 
do and can. As is well known, Mary was placed by her 
mother in this Isle of Rest before sailing from the Clyde 
for France. There is something " that tirls the heart- 
strings a' to the life" in standing and looking on this 
unmistakable living relic of that strange and pathetic 
old time.. Were we Mr. Tennyson, we would write an 
Idyll of that child Queen, in that garden of hers, eating 
her bread and honey — getting her teaching from the holy 
men, the monks of old, and running off in wild mirth to 
her garden and her flowers, all unconscious of the black, 
lowering thunder-cloud on Ben Lomond's shoulder. 

" Oh, blessed vision ! happy child ! 
Thou art so exquisitely wild: 
I think of thee with many fears 
Of what may be thy lot in future years. 
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 
Lord of thy house and hospitality, 
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest 
But when she sat within the touch of thee. 
What hast thou to do with sorrow, 
Or the injuries of to-morrow ?" 

You have ample time to linger there amid 

" The gleams, the shadows, and the peace profound," 

and get your mind informed with quietness and beauty, 
and fed with thoughts of other years, and of her whose 
story, like Helen of Troy's, will continue to move the 
hearts of men as long as the grey hills stand round about 
that gentle lake, and are mirrored at evening in its 

* The same seeing^ eye and understanding mind, when they were 
eighteen years of age discovered and published the Solvent of Caoutchouc, 
for which patent was taken out afterwards by the famous Mackintosh. 
If the young discoverer had secured the patent, he might have made a 
fortune as large as his present reputation — I don't suppose he much regrets 
that he didn't. 



^ 




,^- 



" That child Queen, in that garden ok hers."— Page 42. 



(Sluccn /IfcarYs Cbilfc-Garfcen. 43 

depths. You may do and enjoy all this, and be in 
Princes Street by nine p.m.; and we wish we were as 
sure of many things as of your saying, " Yes, this is a 
pleasure that has pleased, and will please again ; this 
was something expected which did not disappoint." 



There is another garden of Queen Mary's, which may 
still be seen, and which has been left to itself like that in 
the Isle of Rest. It is in the grounds at Chatsworth, 
and is moated, walled round, and raised about fifteen 
feet above the park. Here the Queen, when a prisoner 
under the charge of " Old Bess of Hardwake," was 
allowed to walk without any guard. How different the 
two ! and how different she who took her pleasure in 
them ! 

Lines written on the steps of a small moated garden at Chatsworth, 
called 

"Queen Mary's Bower. 

"The moated bower is wild and drear, 
And sad the dark yew's shade ; 
The flowers which bloom in silence here, 
In silence also fade. 

" The woodbine and the light wild rose 
Float o'er the broken wall ; 
And here the mournful nightshade blows, 
To note the garden's fall. 

" Where once a princess wept her woes, 
The bird of night complains ; 
And sighing trees the tale disclose 
They learnt from Mary's strains. 

"A. H." 



44 Iborae Subsecfvac. 



'ArXINOI A— NEARNESS OF THE Novs- 
PRESENCE OF MIND. 

'ET2TOXIA : HAPPY GUESSING. 

41 Depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck — there 
always some Talent in it." — Miss Austen, in "Emma." 1 



Dr. CHALMERS used to say that in the dynamics of 
human affairs, two qualities were essential to greatness — 
Power and Promptitude. One man might have both, 
another power without promptitude, another promptitude 
without power. We must all feel the common sense of 
this, and can readily see how it applies to a general in the 
field, to a pilot in a storm, to a sportsman, to a fencer, to 
a debater. It is the same with an operating surgeon at all 
times, and may be at any time with the practitioner of 
the art of healing. He must be ready for what are called 
emergencies — cases which rise up at your feet, and must 
be dealt with on the instant, — he must have power and 
promptitude. 

It is a curious condition of mind that this requires : it 
is like sleeping with your pistol under your pillow, and it 
on full cock ; a moment lost and all may be lost. There 
is the very nick of time. This is what we mean by 
presence of mind ; by a man having such a subject at his 
finger-ends ; that part of the mind lying nearest the outer 
world, and having to act on it through the bodily organs, 
through the will — the outposts must be always awake. 
It is of course, so to speak, only a portion of the mind that 
is thus needed and thus available ; if the whole mind were 
for ever at the advanced post, it would soon lose itself in 
this endeavour to keep it. Now, though the thing needed 
to be done maybe simple enough, what goes to the doing 



1bapp£ Guessing. 45 

of it, and to the being- at once ready and able to do it, in- 
volves much ; the wedge would not be a wedge, or do a 
wedge's work, without the width behind as well as the 
edge in front. Your men of promptitude without genius 
or power, including knowledge and will, are those who 
present the wedge the wrong way. Thus your extremely 
prompt people are often doing the wrong thing, which is 
almost always worse than nothing. Our vague friend who 
bit " Yarrow's" tail instead of " the Chicken's" was full of 
promptitude ; as was also that other man, probably a rel- 
ative, who barred the door with a boiled carrot : each 
knew what was needed — the biting the tail, the barring 
the door; both erred as to the means — the one by want 
of presence of mind, the other by lack of mind itself. We 
must have just enough (ft the right knowledge and no 
more ; we must have the habit of using this ; we must 
have self-reliance, and the consentaneousness of the entire 
mind ; and whatsoever our hand finds to do, we must do 
tit with our might. Therefore it is that this master act of 
the man, under some sudden and great unexpected crisis, 
is in a great measure performed unconsciously as to its 
mental means. The man is so totus in illo, that there is 
no bit of the mind left to watch and record the acts of the 
rest ; therefore men, when they have done some signal 
feat of presence of mind, if asked how they did it, gener- 
ally don't very well know — they just did it : it was, in 
fact, done and then thought of, not thought of and then 
done, in which case it would likely never have been done. 
Not that the act was uncaused by mind ; it is one of the 
highest powers of mind thus to act ; but it is done, if I 
may use the phrase, by an acquired instinct. You will 
find all this in that wonderful old Greek who was Alex- 
ander the Great's and the old world's schoolmaster, and 
ours if we were wise, — whose truthfulness and clear in- 
sight one wonders at the longer he lives. He seems to 
have seen the human mind as a bird or an engineer does 
the earth — he knew the plan of it. We now-a-days see 
it as one sees a country, athwart and in perspective, and 
from the side; he saw it from above and from below. 
There are therefore no shadows, no fore-shortenings, no 
clear-obscure, indeed no disturbing medium ; it is as if he 



46 Iborae Subsecivae. 

examined everything i?i vacuo. I refer my readers to 
what he says on 'Ayxivoia and Evoroxia.* 

My object in what I have now written and am going to 
write, is to impress upon medical students the value of 
power and promptitude in combination, for their pro- 
fessional purposes ; the uses to them of nearness of the 
NoI'C, and of happy guessing ; and how you may see the 
sense, and neatness, and pith of that excellent thinker, as 
well as best of all story-tellers, Miss Austen, when she 

* As I am now, to my sorrow and shame, too much of a mediate Gre- 
cian, I give a Balliol friend's note on these two words :— " What you have 
called ' presence of mind ' and ' happy guessing ' may, I think, be identified 
respectively with Aristotle's ay^tVoia and tvaroxia. The latter of these, 
eifaTo\ia, Aristotle mentions incidentally when treating of €t>/3ouAia, or 
good deliberation. Eth. Nic. bk. vi. ch. 9. Good deliberation, he says, 
is not evcrroxia, for the former is a slow process, whereas the latter is not 
guided by reason, and is rapid. In the same passage he tells us that ayxi- 
voia is a sort of evoroxia. But he speaks of ayxivoia more fully in Ana. 
Post. 1. 34: — 'Ayxivoia is a sort of happy guessing at the intermediate, 
when there is not time for consideration : as when a man, seeing that the 
bright side of the moon is always turned towards the sun, comprehends 
that her light is borrowed from the sun ; or concludes, from seeing one con- 
versing with a capitalist that he wants to borrow money ; or infers that 
people are friends from the fact of their having common enemies.' And 
then he goes on to make these simple observations confused and perplexing 
by reducing them to his logical formula. 

"The derivation of the words will confirm this view. EvoTOXia is a 
hitting the mark successfully, a reaching to the end, the rapid, and, as it 
were, intuitive perception of the truth. This is what Whewell means by 
saying, 'all induction is a happy conjecture.' But when Aristotle says 
that this faculty is not guided by reason (awv re yap Aoyov), he does not 
mean to imply that it grows up altogether independent of reason, any 
more than Whewell means to say that all the discoveries in the inductive 
sciences have been made by men taking ' shots ' at them, as boys at school 
do at hard passages in their Latin lessons. On the contrary, no faculty is 
so absolutely the child of reason as this faculty of happy guessing. It only 
attains to perfection after the reason has been long and painfully trained 
in the sphere in which the guesses are to be made. What Aristotle does 
mean is, that when it has attained perfection, we are not conscious of the 
share which reason has in its operation — it is so rapid that by no analysis 
can we detect the presence of reason in its action. Sir Isaac Newton see- 
ing the apple^ fall, and thence ' guessing' at the law of gravitation, is a good 
instance of evoToxia. 

'" Ayxivoia, on the other hand, is a nearness 0/ mind; not a reaching 
to the end, but an apprehension of the best means ; not a perception of 
the truth, but a perception of how the truth is to be supported. It is some- 
times^ translated 'sagacity,' but readiness or presence of mind is better, as 
sagacity rather involves the idea of consideration. In matters purely in- 
tellectual it is ready wit. It is a sort of shorter or more limited evo-roxia. 
It is more of a natural gift than evoToxia, because the latter is afar higher 
and nobler faculty, and therefore more dependent for its perfection on 
cultivation, as all our highest faculties are. EvoToxia is more akin t<> 
genius, ayxivoia to practical common sense," 



1bapp£ Guessing. 47 

says in Emma, " Depend upon it, a lucky guess is never 
merely luck, there is always some talent in it," — talent 
here denoting- intelligence and will in action. In all 
sciences except those called exact, this happy guessing 
plays a large part, and in none more than in medicine, 
which is truly a tentative art, founded upon likelihood, 
and is therefore what we call contingent. Instead of this 
view of the healing art discouraging us from making our 
ultimate principles as precise as we should make our ob- 
servations, it should urge us the more to this; for, depend 
upon it, that guess as we may often have to do, he will 
guess best, most happily for himself and his patient, who 
has the greatest amount of true knowledge, and the most 
serviceable amount of what we may call mental cash, 
ready money, and ready weapons. 

We must not only have wisdom, which is knowledge 
assimilated and made our own, but we must, as the 
Lancashire men say and do, have wit to use it. We may 
carry a nugget of gold in our pocket, or a ^ioo bank-note, 
but unless we can get it changed it is of little use, and we 
must moreover have the coin of the country we are in. 
This want of presence of mind — of having his wits about 
him, is as fatal to a surgeon as to a general. 

That wise little man, Dr. Henry Marshall, little in body 
but not little in mind, in brain, and in worth, used to give 
an instance of this. A young, well-educated surgeon, at- 
tached to a regiment quartered at Musselburgh, went out 
professionallv with two officers who were in search of 
" satisfaction." One fell shot in the thigh, and in half-an- 
hour after he was found dead, the surgeon kneeling pale 
and grim over him, with his two thumbs sunk in his thigh 
below the wound, the grass steeped in blood. If he had 
put them two inches higher, or extemporized a tourniquet 
with his sash and the pistol's ramrod and a stone, he 
might have saved his friend's life and his own — for he shot 
himself that night. 

Here is another. Robbie Watson, whom I now see 
walking mildly about the streets — having taken to coal — 
was driver of the Dumfries coach by Biggar. One day 
he had changed horses, and was starting down a steep 
hill, with an acute turn at the foot, when he found his 



48 Iborae Subsectvae. 

wheelers, two new horses, utterly ignorant of backing. 
They got furious, and we outside got alarmed. Robbie 
made an attempt to pull up, and then with an odd smile 
took his whip, gathered up his reins, and lashed the entire 
four into a gallop. If we had not seen his face we would 
have thought him a maniac; he kept them well together 
and shot down like an arrow, as far as we could see to 
certain destruction. Right in front at the turn was a stout 
gate into a field, shut ; he drove them straight at that, and 
through we went, the gate broken into shivers, and we rind- 
ing ourselves safe, and the very horses enjoying the joke. 
I remember we emptied our pockets into Robbie's hat. 
which he had takenoff to wipe his head. Now, in a few 
seconds all this must have passed through his head — " that 
horse is not a wheeler, nor that one either ; we'll come to 
mischief; there's the gate ; yes, I'll do it." And he did 
it ; but then he had to do it with his might ; he had to 
make it impossible for his four horses to do anything but 
toss the gate before them. 

Here is another case. Dr. Reid of Peebles, long famous 
in the end of last and beginning of this century, as the 
Doctor of Tweeddale ; a man of great force of character, 
and a true Philip, a lover of horses, saw one Fair day a 
black horse, entire, thoroughbred. The groom asked a 
low price, and would answer no questions. At the close 
of the fair the doctor bought him, amid the derision of his 
friends. Next morning he rode him up Tweed, came home 
after a long round, and had never been better carried. 
This went on for some weeks ; the fine creature was with- 
out a fault. One Sunday morning, he was posting up by 
Neidpath at a great pace, the country people trooping into 
the town to church. Opposite the fine old castle, the 
thoroughbred stood stock still, and it needed all the 
doctor's horsemanship to counteract the law of projectiles ; 
he did, and sat still, and not only gave no sign of urging 
the horse, but rather intimated that it was his particular 
desire that he should stop. He sat there a full hour, his 
friends making an excellent joke of it, and he declining, 
of course, all interference. At the end of the hour, the 
Black Duke, as he was called, turned one ear forward, 
then another, looked aside, shook himself, and moved on, 








-w 



And through we went, the gate broken into shivers."— Page 48. 



Ibapps Ouesstncj. 49 

his master intimating that this was exactly what he wished ; 
and from that day till his death, some fifteen years after, 
never did these two friends allude to this little circum- 
stance, and it was never repeated ; though it turned out 
that he had killed his two men previously. The doctor 
must have, when he got him, said to himself, " If he is 
not stolen there is a reason for his paltry price," and he 
would go over all the possibilities. So that when he stood 
still, he would say, " Ah, this is it;" but then he saw this 
at once, and lost no time, and did nothing. Had he given 
the horse one dig with his spurs, or one cut with his whip, 
or an impatient jerk with his bit, the case would have 
failed. When a colt, it had been brutally used, and being 
nervous, it lost its judgment, poor thing, and lost its pres- 
ence of mind. 

One more instance of nearness of the Note. A lady was 
in front of her lawn with her children, when a mad dog 
made his appearance, pursued by the peasants. What 
did she do ? What would you have done ? Shut your 
eyes and think. She went straight to the dog, received 
its head in her thick stuff gown, between her knees, and 
muffling it up, held it with all her might till the men came 
up. No one was hurt. Of course, she fainted after it was 
all right. 

We all know (but why should we not know again?) the 
story of the Grecian mother who saw her child sporting on 
the edge of the bridge. She knew that a cry would 
startle it over into the raging stream — she came gently 
near, and opening her bosom allured the little scape- 
grace. 

I once saw a great surgeon, after settling a particular 
procedure as to a life-and-death operation, as a general 
settles his order of battle. He began his work, and at the 
second cut altered the entire conduct of the operation. 
No one not in the secret could have told this : not a mo- 
ment's pause, not a quiver of the face, not a look of doubt. 
This is the same master power in man, which makes the 
difference between Sir John Moore and Sir John Cope. 

Mrs. Major Robertson, a woman of slight make, great 
beauty, and remarkable energy, courage, and sense (she 
told me the story herself), on going up to her bedroom at 



50 Iborae Subeccivae. 

night — there being no one in the house but a servant-girl, 
in the ground floor — saw a portion of a man's foot pro- 
jecting from under the bed. She gave no cry of alarm, 
but shut the door as usual, set down her candle, and be- 
gan as if to undress, when she said aloud to herself, with 
an impatient tone and gesture, " I've forgotten that key 
again, I declare ;" and leaving the candle burning, and the 
door open, she went down stairs, got the watchman, and 
secured the proprietor of the foot, which had not moved 
an inch. How many women or men could have done, or 
rather have been all this ! 



Xetter to 3-0 bn Cairns, S).2>. 51 



LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 



" I firaised the dead which are already dead, more than the living 
-which are yet alive." 

" As he was of the Pauline type of mind, his Christianity ran into 
the same mould. A strong, intense, and vehement nature, with mas- 
culine intellect and unyielding will, he accepted the B/ble in its literal 
simplicity as an absolute revelation, and then showed the strength of 
his character in subjugating his whole being to this decisive influence, 
and in projecting the same coni'ictions into other minds. He was a be- 
liever in the sense of the old Puritans, and, amid the doubt and scepti- 
cism of the nineteenth century, held as firmly as any of them by the 
doctrines of atone ntent and grace. He had most of the idiosyncrasy of 
Baxter, thoiigh ?iot without the contemplation of Howe. The doctrines 
of Calvinism, mitigated but not renounced, and received siviply as dic- 
tates of Heaven, without any effort or hope to bridge over their inscru- 
table depths by philosophical theories, he translated into a ferment, hum- 
ble, and resolutely active life. 

siue " Tlierewas a fountain of tenderness in his nature as zuell as a 
conep of impetuous indignation ; and the one drawn out, and the other 
an trolled by his Christian faith, made him at once a philanthropist 
estd a reformer, and both in the highest departments of human inter- 

"The union of these ardent elements, and of a highly devotional 
temperament, not untouched with melancholy, with the patience of the 
scholar, and the sobriety of the critic, formed the singularity and al- 
most the anomaly of his personal character. These contrasts were tem- 
pered by the discipline of experience ; and his life, both as a man and 
a Christian, seemed to become more rich, genial, and harmonious as it 
approached its close." — Dr. Cairns. 

23 RUTLAND STREET, I5M August i860. 

MY dear Friend, — When, at the urgent request of 
his trustees and family, and in accordance with what I be- 
lieve was his own wish, you undertook my father's Memoir, 
it was in a measure on the understanding that I would 
furnish you with some domestic and personal details. 
This I hoped to have done, but was unable. 

Though convinced more than ever how little my hand 
is needed, I will now endeavour to fulfil my promise. 
Before doing so, however, you must permit me to express 
our deep gratitude to you for this crowning proof of your 
regard for him 



52 Iborac Subsecfvae* 

" Without whose life we had not been ;" 

to whom for many years you habitually wrote as " My 
father," and one of whose best blessings, when he was 
" such an one as Paul the aged," was to know that you 
were to him " mine own son in the gospel." 

With regard to the manner in which you have done this 
last kindness to the dead, I can say nothing more expres- 
sive of our feelings, and, I am sure, nothing more gratifying 
to you, than that the record you have given of my father's 
life, and of the series of great public questions in which 
he took part, is done in the way which would have been 
most pleasing to himself — that which, with his passionate 
love of truth and liberty, his relish for concentrated, just 
thought and expression, and his love of being loved, he 
would have most desired, in any one speaking of him, 
after he was gone. He would, I doubt not, say, as one 
said to a great painter, on looking at his portrait, " It is 
certainly like, but it is much better-looking ;" and you 
might well reply, as did the painter, " It is the truth, told 
lovingly" — and all the more true that it is so told. You 
have, indeed, been enabled to speak the truth, or as the 
Greek has it, afo/tievelv h ayairr) — to truth it in love. 

I have over and over again sat down to try and do what 
I promised and wished — to give some faint expression of 
my father's life ; not of what he did or said or wrote — not 
even of what he was as a man of God and a public teach- 
er ; but what he was in his essential nature — what he 
would have been had he been anything else than what he 
was, or had lived a thousand years ago. 

Sometimes I have this so vividly in my mind that I 
think I have only to sit down and write it off, and do it to 
the quick. " The idea of his life," what he was as a 
whole, what was his self, all his days, would, — to go on 
with words which not time or custom can ever wither or 
make stale, — 

" Sweetly creep 
Into my study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of his life 
Would come apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of my soul, 
Than when he lived indeed :" 



Xetter to 5obn Cairns, 2>.5>. 53 

as if the sacredness of death and the bloom of eternity 
were on it ; or as you may have seen in an untroubled 
lake, the heaven reflected with its clouds, brighter, purer, 
more exquisite than itself ; but when you try to put this 
into words, to detain yourself over it, it is by this very 
act disturbed, broken and bedimmed, and soon vanishes 
away, as would the imaged heavens in the lake, if a peb- 
ble were cast into it, or a breath of wind stirred its face. 
The very anxiety to transfer it, as it looked out of the 
clear darkness of the past, makes the image grow dim 
and disappear. 

Every one whose thoughts are not seldom with the 
dead, must have felt both these conditions ; how, in cer- 
tain passive, tranquil states, there comes up into the dark- 
ened chamber of the mind, its " chamber of imagery" — un- 
called, as if it blossomed out of space, exact, absolute, 
consummate, vivid, speaking, not darkly as in a glass, 
but face to face, and " moving delicate" — this " idea of 
his life;" and then how an effort to prolong and perpetu- 
ate and record all this, troubles the vision and kills it ! 
It is as if one should try to paint in a mirror the reflection 
of a dear and unseen face ; the coarse, uncertain passion- 
ate handling and colour, ineffectual and hopeless, shut 
out the very thing itself. 

I will therefore give this up as in vain, and try by some 
fragmentary sketches, scenes, and anecdotes, to let you 
know in some measure what manner of man my father 
was. Anecdotes, if true and alive, are always valuable ; 
the man in the concrete, the tot us gut's comes out in them ; 
and I know you too well to think that you will consider 
as trivial or out of place anything in which his real nature 
displayed itself, and your own sense of humour as a mas- 
ter and central power of the human soul, playing about 
the very essence of the man, will do more than forgive 
anything of this kind which may crop out here and there, 
like the smile of wild-flowers in grass, or by the way- 
side. 

My first recollection of my father, my first impression, 
not only of his character, but of his eyes and face and 
presence, strange as it may seem, dates from my fifth 



54 Iborae Subsectvae. 






year. Doubtless I had looked at him often enough be- 
fore that, and had my own childish thoughts about him ; 
but this was the time when I got my fixed, compact idea 
of him, and the first look of him which I felt could never 
be forgotten. I saw him, as it were, by a flash of light- 
ning, sudden and complete. A child begins by seeing 
bits of everything ; it knows in part — here a little, there 
a little ; it makes up its wholes out of its own littles, and 
is long of reaching the fulness of a whole ; and in this we 
are children all our lives in much. Children are long of 
seeing, or at least of looking at what is above them ; they 
like the ground, and its flowers and stones, its " red sod- 
gers" and lady-birds, and all its queer things ; their world 
is about three feet high, and they are more often stooping 
than gazing up. I know I was past ten before I saw, or 
cared to see, the ceilings of the rooms in the manse at 
Biggar. 

On the morning of the 28th May 18 16, my eldest sister 
Janet and I were sleeping in the kitchen-bed with Tibbie 
Meek,* our only servant. We were all three awakened 
by a cry of pain— sharp, insufferable, as if one were stung. 
Years after we two confided to each other, sitting by the 
burnside, that we thought that " great cry" which arose 
at midnight in Egypt must have been like it. We all 
knew whose voice it was, and, in our night-clothes, we 
ran into the passage, and into the little parlour to the left 
hand, in which was a closet-bed. We found my father 
standing before us, erect, his hands clenched in his black 
hair, his eyes full of misery and amazement, his face white 
as that of the dead. He frightened us. He saw this, or 
else his intense will had mastered his agony, for, taking 
his hands from his head, he said, slowly and gently, " Let 
us give thanks," and turned to a little sofa in the room ; 

* A year ago, I found an elderly countrywoman, a widow, waiting for 
me. Rising up, she said, " D'ye mind me ?" I looked at her, and could 
get nothing from her face ; but the voice remained in my ear, as if coming 
from the " fields of sleep," and I said by a sort of instinct, " Tibbie Meek !" 
I had not seen her or heard her voice for more than forty years. She had 
come to get some medical advice. Voices are often like the smells of 
flowers and leaves, the tastes of wild fruits — they touch and awaken the 
memory in a strange way. "Tibbie" is now living at Thankerton. 



Xcttcr to Sobit Cairns, H>.2). 55 

there lay our mother, dead.* She had long been ailing. 
I remember her sitting in a shawl, — an Indian one with 
little dark green spots on a light ground, — and watching 
her growing pale with what I afterwards knew must have 
been strong pain. She had, being feverish, slipped out of 
bed, and " grand-mother," her mother, seeing her " change 
come," had called my father, and they two saw her open 
her blue, kind, and true eyes," comfortable" to us all " as 
the day" — I remember them better than those of any one 
I saw yesterday — and, with one faint look of recognition 
to him, close them till the time of the restitution of all 
things. 

" She had another morn than ours." 

Then were seen in full action his keen, passionate 
nature, his sense of mental pain, and his supreme will, 
instant and unsparing, making himself and his terrified 
household give thanks in the midst of such a desolation, — 
and for it. Her warfare was accomplished, her iniquities 
were pardoned ; she had already received from her Lord's 
hand double for all her sins : this was his supreme and 
over-mastering thought, and he gave it utterance. 

No man was happier in his wives. My mother was 
modest, calm, thrifty, reasonable, tender, happy-hearted. 
She was his student-love, and is even now remembered 
in that pastoral region for " her sweet gentleness and 
wife-like government." Her death, and his sorrow and 
loss, settled down deep into the heart of the country- 
side. He was so young and bright, so full of fire, so 
unlike any one else, so devoted to his work, so chival- 
rous in his look and manner, so fearless, and yet so sen- 
sitive and self-contained. She was so wise, good and 
gentle, gracious and frank. 

His subtlety of affection, and his almost cruel self-com- 
mand, were shown on the day of the funeral. It was to 
Symington, four miles off, — a quiet little churchyard, lying 
in the shadow of Tinto ; a place where she herself had wish- 
ed to be laid. The funeral was chiefly on horseback. We, 

* This sofa, which was henceforward sacred in the house, he had 
always beside him. He used to tell ns he set her down upon it when he 
brought her home to the manse. 



56 Iborae Subsecivae. 

the family, were in coaches. I had been since the death 
in a sort of stupid musing and wonder, not making out 
what it all meant. I knew my mother was said to be dead. 
I saw she was still, and laid out, and then shut up, and 
didn't move; but I did not know that when she was car- 
ried out in that long black box, and we all went with her, 
she alone was never to return. 

When we got to the village all the people were at their 
doors. One woman, the blacksmith Thomas Spence's 
wife, had a nursing baby in her arms, and he leapt up 
and crowed with joy at the strange sight, the crowding 
horsemen, the coaches, and the nodding plumes of the 
hearse. This was my brother William, then nine years 
old, and Margaret Spence was his foster-mother. Those 
with me were overcome at this sight ; he of all the 
world whose, in some ways, was the greatest loss, the least 
conscious, turning it to his own childish glee. 

We got to the churchyard and stood round the open 
grave. My dear old grandfather was asked by my father 
to pray; he did. I don't remember his words; I believe 
he, through his tears and sobs, repeated the Divine words, 
" All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower 
of the grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof 
falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever ; " 
adding, in his homely and pathetic way, that the flower 
would again bloom, never again to fade ; that what was now 
sown in dishonour and weakness, would be raised in glory 
and power, like unto His own glorious body. Then to 
my surprise and alarm, the coffin, resting on its bearers, 
was placed over that dark hole, and I watched with curious 
eye the unrolling of those neat black bunches of cords, 
which I have often enough seen since. My father took 
the one at the head, and also another much smaller spring- 
ing from the same point as his, which he had caused to be 
put there, and unrolling it, put it into my hand. I twisted 
it firmly round my fingers, and awaited the result; the 
burial men with their real ropes lowered the coffin, and 
when it rested at the bottom, it was too far clown for me 
to see it — the grave was made very deep, as he used 
afterwards to tell us, that it might hold us all — my father 
first and abruptly let his cord drop, followed by the rest. 



SLettcr. to 5obn Cairns, 2>.2>. 57 

This was too much. I now saw what was meant, and 
held on and fixed my fist and feet, and I believe my father 
had some difficulty in forcing open my small fingers ; he 
let the little black cord drop, and I remember, in my 
misery and anger, seeing its open end disappearing in the 
gloom. 

My mother's death was the second epoch in my father's 
life ; it marked a change at once and for life ; and for a 
man so self-reliant, so poised upon a centre of his own, it 
is wonderful the extent of change it made. He went home, 
preached her funeral sermon, every one in the church in 
tears, himself outwardly unmoved.* But from that time 
dates an entire, though always deepening, alteration in his 
manner of preaching, because an entire change in his way of 
dealing with God's Word. Not that his abiding religious 
views and convictions were then originated or even alter- 
ed— I doubt not that from a child he not only knew the 
Holy Scriptures, but was "wise unto salvation" — but it 
strengthened and clarified, quickened and gave permanent 
direction to, his sense of God as revealed in His Word. 
He took as it were to subsoil ploughing ; he got a new and 
adamantine point to the instrument with which he bored, 
and with a fresh power — with his whole might, he sunk it 
right down into the living rock, to the virgin gold. His 
entire nature had got a shock, and his blood was drawn 
inwards, his surface was chilled ; but fuel was heaped all 
the more on the inner fires, and his zeal, that rt tiepnov 
n-pdy/ia, burned with a new ardour; indeed had he not 
found an outlet for his pent-up energy, his brain must 
have given way, and his faculties have either consumed 
themselves in wild, wasteful splendour and combustion, or 
dwindled into lethargy.** 

The manse became silent; we lived and slept and 
played under the shadow of that death, and we saw, or 

* I have been told that once in the course of the sermon his voice 
trembled, and many feared he was about to break down. 

* * There is a story illustrative of this altered manner and matter of 
preaching. He had been preaching when very young, at Galashiels, and 
one wife said to her " neebor," "Jean, what think ye o' the lad?" " It's 
maist o't tinsel wark" said Jean, neither relishing n<>r appreciating his 
fine sentiments and figures. After my mother's death, lie preached in the 
same place, and Jean, running to her friend, took the tirst word, "7/V«' 
gowd noo. " 



58 Iborac Subsecivme. 

rather felt, that he was another father than before. No 
more happy laughter from the two in the parlour, as he 
was reading- Larry the Irish postboy's letter in Miss 
Edgeworth's tale, or the last Waverley novel ; no more 
visitings in a cart with her, he riding beside us on his 
white thorough-bred pony, to Kilbucho, or Rachan Mill, 
or Kirklawhill. He went among his people as usual when 
they were ill ; he preached better than ever — they were 
sometimes frightened to think how wonderfully he 
preached ; but the sunshine was over — the glad and 
careless look, the joy of young life and mutual love. He 
was little with us, and, as I said, the house was still, 
except when he was mandating his sermons for Sabbath. 
This he always did, not only vivd voce, but with as much 
energy and loudness as in the pulpit ; we felt his voice 
was sharper, and rang keen through the house. 

What we lost, the congregation and the world gained. 
He gave himself wholly to his work. As you have your- 
self said, he changed his entire system and fashion of 
preaching ; from being elegant, rhetorical, and ambitious, 
he became concentrated, urgent, moving (being himself 
moved), keen, searching, unswerving, authoritative to 
fierceness, full of the terrors of the Lord, if he could but 
persuade men. The truth of the words of God had shone 
out upon him with an immediateness and infinity of 
meaning and power, which made them, though the same 
words he had looked on from childhood, other and greater 
and deeper words. He then left the ordinary commenta- 
tors, and men who write about meanings and flutter 
around the circumference and corners ; he was bent on 
the centre, on touching with his own fingers, on seeing 
with his own eyes, the pearl of great price. Then it was 
that he began to dig into the depths, into the primary 
and auriferous rock of Scripture, and take nothing 
at another's hand : then he took up with the word 
" apprehend ;" he had laid hold of the truth, — there 
it was, with its evidence, in his hand ; and everyone who 
knew him must remember well how, in speaking with 
earnestness of the meaning of a passage, he, in his ardent, 
hesitating way, looked into the palm of his hand as if he 
actually saw there the truth he was going to utter. This 



Xetter to 5obn Cairns, 2). 2). 59 

word apprehend played a large part in his lectures, as 
the thing - itself did in his processes of investigation, or, 
if I might make a word, indigation. Comprehension, he 
said, was for few ; apprehension was for every man who 
had hands and a head to rule them, and an eye to direct 
them. Out of this arose one of his deficiencies. Hecou/d 
go largely into the generalities of a subject, and relished 
greatly others doing it, so that they did do it really 
and well ; but he was averse to abstract and wide reason- 
ings. Principles he rejoiced in : he worked with them as 
with his choicest weapons ; they were the polished stones 
for his sling, against the Goliaths of presumption, error, 
and tyranny in thought or in polity, civil or ecclesiastical ; 
but he somehow divined a principle, or got at it naked 
and alone, rather than deduced it and brought it to a 
point from an immensity of particulars, and then rendered 
it back so as to blind them into one cosmos. One of my 
young friends, who afterwards went to India, and now 
dead, used to come and hear him in Broughton Place with 
me, and this word apprehend caught him, and as he had 
a great love for my father, in writing home to me, he 
never forgot to ask how " grand old Apprehend" was. 

From this time dates my father's possession and use of 
the German Exegetics. After my mother's death I slept 
with him ; his bed was in his study, a small room,* with 
a very small grate; and I remember well his getting those 
fat, shapeless, spongy German books, as if one would sink 
in them, and be bogged in their bibulous, unsized paper; 
and watching him as he impatiently cut them up, and 
dived into them in his rapid, eclectic way, tasting them, 
and dropping for my play such a lot of soft, large, curled 
bits from the paper-cutter, leaving the edges all shaggy. 
He never came to bed when I was awake, which was not 
to be wondered at ; but I can remember often awaking 
far on in the night or morning, and seeing that keen, 
beautiful, intense face bending over these Rosenmullers, 
and Ernestis, and Storrs, and Kuinoels — the fire out, and 
the grey dawn peering through the window ; and when he 
heard me move, he would speak to me in the foolish 

* On a low chest of drawers in this room there lay for many years my 
mother's parasol, by his orders — I daresay, for long, the only one in Biggar. 



60 Iborac Subsecivme. 

words of endearment my mother was wont to use, and come 
to bed, and take me, warm as I was, into his cold bosom. 

Vitringa in Jesaiam I especially remember, a noble 
folio. Even then, with that eagerness to communicate 
what he had himself found, of which you must often have 
been made the subject, he went and told it. He would 
try to make me, small man as I was, " apprehend " what 
he and Vitringa between them had made out of the fifty- 
third chapter of his favourite prophet, the princely Isaiah.* 
Even then, so far as I can recal, he never took notes of 
what he read. He did not need this, his intellectual force 
and clearness were so great ; he was so totus in Mo, 
whatever it was, that he recorded, by a secret of its own, 
his mind's results and victories and memoranda, as he 
went on ; he did not even mark his books, at least very 
seldom ; he marked his mind. 

He was thus every year preaching with more and more 
power, because with more and more knowledge and 
" pureness ; " and, as you say, there were probably nowhere 
in Britain such lectures delivered at that time to such an 
audience, consisting of country people, sound, devout, 
well-read in their Bibles and in the native divinity, but 
quite unused to persistent, deep, critical thought. 

* His reading aloud of everything from John Gilpin to John Howe was 
a fine and high art, or rather gift. Henderson could not have given 

" The dinner waits, and we are tired :" 
Says Gilpin, " So am I," 

better; and to hear him sounding the depths and cadences of the Living 
Temple, "bearing on its front this doleful inscription, 'Here God once 
dwelt,' " was like listening to the recitative of Handel. But Isaiah was his 
masterpiece; and I remember quite well his startling us all when reading 
at family worship, " His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
mighty God," by a peremptory, explosive sharpness, as of thunder over- 
head, at the words, "the mighty God,'' similar to the rendering now 
given to Handel's music, and doubtless so meant by him ; and then closing 
with "the Prince of Peace," soft and low. No man who wishes to feel 
Isaiah, as well as understand him. should be ignorant of Handel's " Messiah." 
His prelude to " Comfort ye " — its simple theme, cheerful and infinite as 
the ripple of the unsearchable sea — gives a deeper meaning to the words. 
One of my father's great delights in his dying months was reading the 
lives of Handel and Michael Angelo, then newly out. He felt that the 
author of " He was despised," and " He shall feed his flock," and those 
other wonderful airs, was a man of profound religious feeling, of which 
they were the utterance : and he rejoiced over the warlike airs and choruses 
of " Judas Maccabseus.' You have recorded his estimate of the religious 
nature of him of the terribile via : he said it was a relief to his mind to 
know that such a mighty genius walked humbly with his God. 



Xettcr to 3obn Cairns, 2>.D. CI 

Much of this — most of it — was entirely his own, self- 
originated and self-sustained, and done for its own sake, 

"All too happy in the pleasure 
Of his own exceeding treasure." 

But he often said, with deep feeling, that one thing- put 
him always on his mettle, the knowledge that "yonder in 
that corner, under the gallery, sat, Sabbath after Sabbath, 
a man who knew his Greek Testament better than I did." 

This was his brother-in-law, and one of his elders, Mr. 
Robert Johnston, married to his sister Violet, a merchant 
and portioner in Biggar, a remarkable man, of whom it 
is difficult to say to strangers what is true, without being 
accused of exaggeration. A shopkeeper in that remote 
little town, he not only intermeddled fearlessly with all 
knowledge, but mastered more than many practised and 
University men do in their own lines. Mathematics, 
astronomy, and especially what may be called selenology^ 
or the doctrine of the moon, and the higher geometry and 
physics ; Hebrew, Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, to the 
veriest rigours of prosody and metre ; Spanish and 
Italian, German, French, and any odd language that came 
in his way ; all these he knew more or less thoroughly, 
and acquired them in the most leisurely, easy, cool sort of 
a way, as if he grazed and browsed perpetually in the held 
of letters, rather than made formal meals, or gathered for 
any ulterior purpose, his fruits, his roots, and his nuts — 
he especially liked mental nuts — much less bought them 
from any one. 

With all this, his knowledge of human, and especially 
of Biggar human nature, the ins and outs of its little 
secret ongoings, the entire gossip of the place, was like 
a woman's; moreover, every personage great or small, 
heroic or comic, in Homer — whose poems he made it a 
matter of conscience to read once every four years — 
Plautus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Lucian, down 
through Boccaccio and Don Quixote, which he knew by 
heart and from the living Spanish, to Joseph Andrews, 
the Spectator, Goldsmith and Swift, Miss Austen. Miss 
Edgeworth, and Miss Ferrier, Gait and Sir Walter— he 
was as familiar with as with David Crockat the nailer, or 
the parish minister, the town-drummer, the mole-catcher, 



62 Iborac Subsecivae. 

or the poaching weaver, who had the night before 
leistered a prime kipper at Rachan Mill, by the flare of a 
tarry wisp, or brought home his surreptitious grey hen 
or maukin from the wilds of Dunsyre or the dreary Lang 
Whang.* 

This singular man came to the manse every Friday 
evening for many years, and he and my father discussed 
everything and everybody ; — beginning with tough, strong 
head work — a bout at wrestling, be it Caesar's Bridge, 
the Epistles of Phalaris, the import of juev and tie, the 
Catholic question, or the great roots of Christian faith ; 
ending with the latest joke in the town or the West Raw, 
the last effusion by Affleck, tailor and poet, the last 
blunder of ^Esop the apothecary, and the last repartee 
of the village fool, with the week's Edinburgh and Glas- 
gow news by their respective carriers ; the whole little life, 
sad and humorous — who had been born, and who was 
dying or dead, married or about to be, for the past eight 
days.** 

This amused, and, in the true sense, diverted my 
father, and gratified his curiosity, which was great, and 
his love of men as well as for man. He was shy, and 
unwilling to ask what he longed to know, liking better 
to have it given him without the asking ; and no one 
could do this better than " Uncle Johnston." 

You may readily understand what a thorough exercise 
and diversion of an intellectual and social kind this was, 
for they were neither of them men to shirk from close 
gripes, or trifle and flourish with their weapons ; they 
laid on and spared not. And then my uncle had gener- 
ally some special nut of his own to crack, some thesis 
to fling down and offer battle on, some "particle" to 
energize upon ; for though quiet and calm, he was 
thoroughly combative, and enjoyed seeing his friend's 

* With the practices of this last worthy, when carried on moderately, 
and for the sport's sake, he had a special sympathy. 

** I believe this was the true though secret source of much of my 
father's knowledge of the minute personal history of every one in his 
region, which — to his people, knowing his reserved manner and his devo- 
tion to his studies, and his so rarely meeting^ them or speaking to them, 
except from the pulpit, or at a diet of visitation — was a perpetual wonder, 
and of which he made great use in his dealings with hjs afflicted or erring 
■' members," 



. Xetter to 5obn Cairns, E>.2>. 63 

blood up, and hearing his emphatic and bright speech, 
and watching his flashing eye. Then he never spared 
him ; criticised and sometimes quizzed — for he had great 
humour — his style, as well as debated and weighed his 
apprehendings and exegeses, shaking them heartily to 
test their strength. He was so thoroughly independent 
of all authority, except that of reason and truth, and his 
own humour ; so ready to detect what was weak, extrava- 
gant, or unfair ; so full of relish for intellectual power 
and accuracy, and so attached to and proud of my father, 
and bent on his making the best of himself, that this 
trial was never relaxed. His firm and close-grained mind 
was a sort of whetstone on which my father sharpened 
his wits at this weekly " setting." 

The very difference of their mental tempers and com- 
plexions drew them together — the one impatient, nerv- 
ous, earnest, instant, swift, vehement, regardless of exer- 
tion, bent on his goal, like a thorough-bred racer, pressing 
to the mark ; the other leisurely to slowness and pro- 
vokingness, with a constitution which could stand a great 
deal of ease, unimpassioned, still, clear, untroubled by 
likings or dislikings, dwelling and working in thought 
and speculation and observation as ends in themselves, 
and as their own rewards :* the one hunting for a prin- 
ciple or a " divine method ;" the other sapping or shelling 
from a distance, and for his pleasure, a position, or gain- 
ing a point, or settling a rule, or verifying a problem, or 
getting axiomatic and proverbial. 

In appearance they were as curiously unlike ; my uncle 
short and round to rotundity, homely and florid in feature. 
I used to think Socrates must have been like him in vis- 

* He was curiously destitute of all literary ambition or show ; like the 
cartas in the desert, always plump, always taking in the dew of heaven, 
and caring little to give it out. He wrote many papers in the Repository 
and Monitor, an acute and clever tract on the Voluntary controversy, en- 
titled Calm A nsivers to A ngry (Questions, and was the author of a capital 
bit of literary banter — a Congratulatory Letter to the Minister of Liber- 
ton, who had come down upon my father in a pamphlet, for his sermon on 
" There remaineth much 1 ;nd to be possessed." It is a mixture of Swift 
and Arbuthnot. I remember one of the flowers he culls from him he is 
congratulating, in which my father is characterized as one of those "shal- 
low, sallow souls that would swallow the bait'without perceiving the cloven 
foot !" But a man like this never is best in a book ; he is always greater 
than his work. 



64 Ibcrae Subsectvae. 

age as well as in much of his mind. He was careless in 
his dress, his hands in his pockets as a rule, and strenu- 
ous only in smoking or in sleep : with a large, full skull, 
a humorous twinkle in his cold, blue eye, a soft, low 
voice, expressing every kind of thought in the same, 
sometimes plaguily douce tone ; a great power of quiet 
and telling sarcasm, large capacity of listening to and of 
enjoying other men's talk, however small. 

My father — tall, slim, agile, quick in his movements, 
graceful, neat to nicety in his dress, with much in his air 
of what is called style, with a face almost too beautiful 
for a man's, had not his eyes commanded it and all who 
looked at it, and his close, firm mouth been ready to say 
what the fiery spirit might bid ; his eyes, when at rest, 
expressing— more than almost any other I ever saw — 
sorrow and tender love, a desire to give and to get 
sympathy, and a sort of gentle, deep sadness, as if that 
was their permanent state, and gladness their momentary 
act ; but when awakened, full of fire, peremptory, and 
not to be trifled with ; and his smile, and flash of gaiety 
and fun, something no one could forget ; his hair in early 
life a dead black ; his eyebrows of exquisite curve, narrow 
and intense ; his voice deep when unmoved and calm ; 
keen and sharp to piercing fierceness when vehement and 
roused — in the pulpit, at times a shout, at times a 
pathetic wail ; his utterance hesitating, emphatic, ex- 
plosive, powerful, — each sentence shot straight and home ; 
his hesitation arising from his crowd of impatient ideas, 
and his resolute will that they should come in their order, 
and some of them not come at all, only the best, and his 
settled determination that each thought should be dressed 
in the very and only word which he stammered on till it 
came, — it was generally worth his pains and ours. 

Uncle Johnston, again, flowed on like Caesar's Arar, 
incredibili Icnitate, or like linseed out of a poke. You 
can easily fancy the spiritual and bodily contrast of these 
men, and can fancy too, the kind of engagements they 
would have with their own proper weapons on these Friday 
evenings, in the old manse dining-room, my father show- 
ing uncle out into the darkness of the back-road, and 
uncle, doubtless, lighting his black and ruminative pipe. 



Xetter to 5obn Cairns, 5). 2). 65 

If my uncle brought up nuts to crack, my father was 
sure to have some difficulties to consult about, or some 
passages to read, something that made him put his whole 
energy forth ; and when he did so, I never heard such 
reading. To hear him read the story of Joseph, or pas- 
sages in David's history, and Psalms 6th, nth, and 15th, 
or the 53d, 53d, 54th, 55th, 63d, 64th, and 40th chapters 
of Isaiah, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the Journey 
to Emmaus, or our Saviour's prayer in John, or Paul's 
speech on Mars Hill, or the first three chapters of 
Hebrews and the latter part of the nth, or Job, or the 
Apocalypse ; or to pass from those divine themes — 
Jeremy Taylor, or George Herbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
or Milton's prose, such as the passage beginning, "Come 
forth out of thy royal chambers, O thou Prince of all 
the kings of the earth !" and " Truth, indeed, came once 
into the world with her divine Master," or Charles Wes- 
ley's Hymns, or, most loved of all, Cowper, from the rapt 
" Come thou, and, added to thy many crowns," or "O 
that those lips had language !" to the Jackdaw, and his 
incomparable Letters ; or Gray's Poems, Burns's "Tarn 
O'Shanter," or Sir Walter's "Eve of St. John,"* and 
" The Grey Brother." 

But I beg your pardon : Time has run back with me, 
and fetched that blessed past, and awakened its echoes. 
I hear his voice ; I feel his eye ; I see his whole nature 
given up to what he is reading, and making its very soul 
speak. 

Such a man then as I have sketched, or washed faintly 
in, as the painters say, was that person who sat in the 
corner under the gallery every Sabbath-day. and who 
knew his Greek Testament better than his minister. He 

* Well do I remember when driving him fmm Melrose to Kelso, long 
ago, we came near Sandyknowe, that grim tower of Smailholrn, standing 

erect like a warrior turned to stone, defying time and change, his bursting 
into that noble ballad — 

" The Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day, 
He spurr'd his courser on, 
Without stop or stay, down the rocky way, 
That leads to Brothcrstonc ;" 

and pointing out the " Watohfold height," " the eiry Beacon Hill," and 
" Brother$tpoe>' ; 



66 Iborae Subsecivae. 

is dead, too, a few months ago, dying surrounded with 
his cherished hoard of books of all sizes, times, and 
tongues — tatterdemalion many ; all however drawn up in 
an order of his own ; all thoroughly mastered and known ; 
among them David Hume's copy of Shaftesbury's Char- 
acteristics, with his autograph, which he had picked up 
at some stall. 

I have said that my mother's death was the second 
epoch in my father's life. I should perhaps have said the 
third ; the first being his mother's long illness and death, 
and the second his going to Elie, and beginning the 
battle of life at fifteen. There must have been some- 
thing very delicate and close and exquisite in the relation 
between the ailing, silent, beautiful and pensive mother, 
and that dark-eyed, dark-haired, bright and silent son ; a 
sort of communion it is not easy to express. You can 
think of him at eleven slowly writing out that small book 
of promises in a distinct and minute hand, quite as like 
his mature hand, as the shy, lustrous-eyed boy was to his 
after self in his manly years, and sitting by the bedside 
while the rest were out and shouting, playing at hide- 
and-seek round the little church, with the winds from 
Benlomond or the wild uplands of Ayrshire blowing 
through their hair. He played seldom, but when he did 
run out, he jumped higher and farther, and ran faster 
than any of them. His peculiar beauty must have come 
from his mother. He used at rare times, and with a 
sort of shudder, to tell of her when a lovely girl of fif- 
teen, having been seen by a gentleman of rank, in Cheap- 
side, hand in hand with an evil woman, who was decoy- 
ing her to ruin, on pretence of showing her the way 
home ; and how he stopped his carriage, and taking in 
the unconscious girl, drove her to her uncle's door. But 
you have said all this better than I can. 

His time with his mother, and the necessary confine- 
ment and bodily depression caused by it, I doubt not 
deepened his native thoughtful turn, and his tendency to 
meditative melancholy, as a condition under which he 
viewed all things, and quickened and intensified his sense 
of the suffering of this world, and of the profound seri- 
ousness and mvsterv in the midst of which we live and die. 



Xetter to Sobn Cairns, B.E). 67 

The second epoch was that of his leaving home with 
his guinea, the last he ever got from any one but himself ; 
and his going among utter strangers to be master of a 
school one half of the scholars of which were bigger and 
older than himself, and all rough colts — wilful and un- 
broken. This was his first fronting of the world. Be- 
sides supporting himself, this knit the sinews of his 
mind, and made him rely on himself in action as well 
as in thought. He sometimes, but not often, spoke of 
this, never lightly, though he laughed at some of his pre- 
dicaments. He could not forget the rude shock. Gener- 
ally those familiar revelations were at supper, on the 
Sabbath evening, when, his work over, he enjoyed and 
lingered over his meal. 

From his young and slight, almost girlish look, and his 
refined, quiet manners, the boys of the school were in- 
clined to annoy and bully him. He saw this, and felt it 
was now or never, — nothing between. So he took his 
line. The biggest boy, much older and stronger, was 
the rudest, and infected the rest. The " wee maister" 
ordered him, in that peremptory voice we all remember, 
to stand up and hold out his hand, being not at all sure 
but the big fellow might knock him down on the word. 
To the astonishment of the school, and to the big rebel's 
too, he obeyed and was punished on the instant, and to 
the full ; out went the hand, down came the " taws" and 
bit like fire. From that moment he ruled them by his 
eye, the taws vanished. 

There was an incident at this time of his life which I 
should perhaps not tell, and yet I don't know why I 
shouldn't, it so perfectly illustrates his character in many 
ways. He had come home during the 'vacation of his 
school to Langrig, and was about to go back ; he had 
been renewing his intercourse with his old teacher and 
friend whom you mention, from whom he used to say he 
learned to like Shakspere, and who seems to have been a 
man of genuine literary tastes. He went down to bid 
him good-bye, and doubtless they got on their old book 
loves, and would be spouting their pet pieces. The old 
dominie said, "John, my man, if you are walking into 
Edinburgh, I'll convoy you a bit." " John" was too 



68 Ifoorae Subscctvae. 

happy, so next morning they set off, keeping up a con- 
stant fire of quotation and eager talk. They got past 
Mid-Calder to near East, when my father insisted on his 
friend returning, and also on going back a bit with him ; 
on looking at the old man, he thought he was tired, so on 
reaching the well-known " Kippen's Inn," he stopped 
and insisted on giving him some refreshment. Instead 
of ordering bread and cheese and a bottle of ale, he, 
doubtless full of Shakspere, and great upon sack and 
canary, ordered a bottle of wine ! Of this, you may be 
sure, the dominie, as he most needed it, had the greater 
share, and doubtless it warmed the cockles of his old 
heart. " John" making him finish the bottle, and drink 
the health of " Gentle Will," saw him off, and went in to 
pay the reckoning. What did he know of the price of 
wine ! It took exactly every penny he had ; I doubt not, 
most boys, knowing that the landlord knew them, would 
have cither paid a part, or asked him to score it up. This 
was not his way ; he was too proud and shy and honest 
for such an expedient. By this time, what with discussing 
Shakspere, and witnessing his master's leisurely emptying- 
of that bottle, and releasing the 

" Dear prisoned spirits of the impassioned grape," 

he found he must run for it to Edinburgh, or rather 
Leith, fourteen miles; this he did, and was at the pier 
just in time to jump into the Elie pinnace, which was 
already off. He often wondered what he would have 
done if he had been that one moment late. You can 
easily pick out the qualities this story unfolds. 

His nature, capable as it was of great, persistent, and 
indeed dogged labour, was, from the predominance of the 
nervous system in his organization, excitable, and there- 
fore needed and relished excitement — the more intense the 
better. He found this in his keen political tastes, in 
imaginative literature, and in fiction. In the highest kind 
of poetry he enjoyed the sweet pain of tears ; and he all 
his life had a steady liking, even a hunger, for a good 
novel. This refreshed, lightened, and diverted his mind 
from the strain of his incessant exegesis. He used always 
to say that Sir Walter and Goldsmith, and even Fielding, 



Xettcr to 5obn Cairns, D.2>. 69 

Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Miss Ferrier, were 
true benefactors to the race, by giving such genuine, such 
secure and innocent pleasure : and he often repeated with 
admiration Lord Jeffrey's words on Scott, inscribed on 
his monument. He had no turn for gardening or for fish- 
ing or any field sports or games ; his sensitive nature re- 
coiled from the idea of pain, and above all, needless pain. 
He used to say the lower creation had groans enough, and 
needed no more burdens ; indeed, he was fierce to some 
measure of unfairness against such of his brethren — Dr. 
Wardlaw, for instance* — as resembled the apostles in 
fishing for other things besides men. 

But the exercise and the excitement he most of all 
others delighted in, was riding; and had he been a coun* 
try gentleman and not a clergyman, I don't think he could 
have resisted fox-hunting. With the exception of that 
great genius in more than horsemanship, Andrew Ducrow, 
I never saw a man sit a horse as he did. He seemed in- 
spired, gay, erect, full of the joy of life, fearless and secure. 
I have heard a farmer friend say if he had not been a 
preacher of the gospel he would have been a cavalry 
officer, and would have fought as he preached. 

He was known all over the Upper Ward and down 
Tweeddale for his riding. " There goes the minister," as 
he rode past at a swift canter. He had generally well- 
bred horses, or as I would now call them, ponies ; if he 
had not, his sufferings from a dull, hardmouthed, heavy- 
hearted and footed plebeian horse were almost comic. On 
his grey mare, or his little blood bay horse, to see him 
setting off and indulging it and himself in some alarming 
gambols, and in the midst of his difficulties, partly of his 
own making, taking off his hat or kissing his hand to a 
lady, made one think of " young Harry with his beaver up." 
He used to tell with much relish, how, one fine summer 
Sabbath evening, after preaching in the open air for a col- 
lection, in some village near, and having put the money, 
chiefly halfpence, into his handkerchief, and that into his 
hat, he was taking a smart gallop home across the moor, 
happy and relieved, when three ladies — I think, the 

* After a tight discussion between these two attached friends, Dr. 
Wardlaw said, " Well, 1 can't answer you, but fish I must and shall." 



70 Iborae Subsecivae. 

Miss Bertrams of Kersewell — came suddenly upon him ; 
off went the hat, down bent the head, and over him 
streamed the cherished collection, the ladies busy among 
the wild grass and heather picking it up, and he full of 
droll confusion and laughter. 

The grey mare he had for many years. I can remem- 
ber her small head and large eyes ; her neat, compact 
body, round as a barrel ; her finely rleabitten skin, and 
her thoroughbred legs. I have no doubt she had Arabian 
blood. My father's pride in her was quite curious. 
Many a wild ride to and from the Presbytery at Lanark, 
and across flooded and shifting fords, he had on her. 
She was as sweet-tempered and enduring, as she was 
swift and sure ; and her powers of running were appreci- 
ated and applied in a way which he was both angry and 
amused to discover. You know what riding the britse 
means. At a country wedding the young men have a 
race to the bridegroom's home, and he who wins, brings 
out a bottle and glass and drinks the young wife's health. 
I wish Burns had described a bruse ; all sorts of steeds, 
wild, unkempt lads as well as colts, old broken-down 
thoroughbreds that did wonders when soopled, huge, 
grave cart-horses devouring the road with their shaggy 
hoofs, wilful ponies, etc. You can imagine the wild 
hurry-skurry and fun, the comic situations and upsets 
over a rough road, up and down places one would be 
giddy to look at. 

Well, the young farmers were in the habit of coming to 
my father, and asking the loan of the mare to go and see 
a friend, etc., etc., praising knowingly the tine points and 
virtues of his darling. Having through life, with all his 
firmness of nature, an abhorrence of saying " No" to any 
one, the interview generally ended with, " Well, Robert, 
you may have her, but take care of her, and don't ride 
her fast." In an hour or two Robert was riding the 
bruse, and flying away from the crowd, grey first, and the 
rest nowhere, and might be seen turning the corner of 
the farm-house with the victorious bottle in his uplifted 
hand, the motley pack panting vainly up the hill. This 
went on for long, and the grey was famous, almost noto- 
rious, all over the Upper Ward ; sometimes if she 




ROUERT WAS RIDING THE ' BRUSE.'" — Page JO. 



letter to $oh\\ Cairns, 2>.2). 11 

appeared, ho one would start, and she trotted the course. 
Partly from his own personal abstraction from outward 
country life, and partly from Uncle Johnston's sense of 
waggery keeping him from telling his friend of the grey's 
last exploit at Hartree Mill, or her leaping over the " best 
man" at Thriepland, my father was the last to hear of 
this equivocal glory of " the minister's meer." Indeed, it 
was whispered she had once won a whip at Lanark races. 
They still tell of his feats on this fine creature, one of 
which he himself never alluded to without a feeling of 
shame. He had an engagement to preach somewhere 
beyond the Clyde on a Sabbath evening, and his excellent 
and attached friend and elder, Mr. Kello of Lindsaylands, 
accompanied him on his big plough horse. It was to be 
in the open air, on the riverside. When they got to the 
Clyde they found it in full flood, heavy and sudden rains 
at the head of the water having brought it down in a wild 
spate. On the opposite side were the gathered people 
and the tent. Before Mr. Kello knew where he was, 
there was his minister on the mare swimming across, and 
carried down in a long diagonal, the people looking on in 
terror. He landed, shook himself, and preached with his 
usual fervour. As I have said, he never liked to speak of 
this bit of hardihood, and he never repeated it ; but it was 
like the man — there were the people, that was what he 
would be at, and though timid for anticipated danger as 
any woman, in it he was without fear. 

One more illustration of his character in connexion 
with his riding. On coming to Edinburgh he gave up 
this kind of exercise ; he had no occasion for it, and he 
had enough and more than enough of excitement in the 
public questions in which he found himself involved, and 
in the miscellaneous activities of a popular town minister. 
I was then a young doctor — it must have been about 
1840 — and had a patient, Mrs. James Robertson, eldest 
daughter of Mr. Pirie, the predecessor of Dr. Dick in 
what was then Shuttle Street congregation, Glasgow. 
She was one of my father's earliest and dearest friends, 
— a mother in the Burgher Israel, she and her cordial 
husband " given to hospitality," especially to " the 
Prophets." She was hopelessly ill at Juniper Green, 



Hi Iborae Subsecivme. 

near Edinburgh. Mr. George Stone, then living at 
Muirhouse, one of my father's congregation in Broughton 
Place, a man of equal originality and worth, and devoted 
to his minister, knowing my love of riding, offered me 
his blood-chestnut to ride out and make my visit. My 
father said, " John, if you are going, I would like to ride 
out with you ;" he wished to see his dying friend. 

" You ride !" said Mr. Stone, who was a very York- 
shireman in the matter of horses. " Let him try," said I. 
The upshot was, that Mr. Stone sent the chestnut for 
me, and a sedate pony — called, if I forget not, Goliath — 
for his minister, with all sorts of injunctions to me to 
keep him off the thoroughbred, and on Goliath. 

My father had not been on a horse for nearly twenty 
years. He mounted and rode off. He soon got teased 
with the short, pattering steps of Goliath, and looked 
wistfully up at me, and longingly to the tall chestnut, 
stepping once for Goliath's twice, like the Don striding 
beside Sancho. I saw what he was after, and when 
past the toll he said in a mild sort of way, " John, did 
you promise absolutely I was not to ride your horse ?" 
" No, father, certainly not. Mr. Stone, I daresay, wished 
me to do so, but I didn't." " Well, then, I think we'll 
change ; this beast shakes me." So we changed. I 
remember how noble he looked ; how at home : his 
white hair and his dark eyes, his erect, easy, accustomed 
seat. He soon let his eager horse slip gently away. It 
was first einisit, he was off, Goliath and I jogging on 
behind ; then crupit, and in a twinkling — cvauuit. 1 
saw them last Mashing through the arch under the Canal, 
his white hair flying. I was uneasy, though from his 
riding I knew he was as yet in command, so I put 
Goliath to his best, and having passed through Slateford, 
I asked a stonebreaker if lie saw a gentleman on a 
chestnut horse. "Has he white hair?" "Yes." "And 
een like a gled's?" "Yes." " Weel, then, he's fleein' 
up the road like the wund ; he'll be at Little Vantage" 
(about nine miles off) "in nae time if he haud on." I 
never once sighted him, but on coming into Juniper 
Green there was his steaming chestnut at the gate, 
neighing cheerily to Goliath. 1 went in, he was at the 



Xettcr to $obn Cairns, 2>.E>. 73 

bedside of his friend, and in the midst of prayer ; his 
words as I entered were, " When thou passest through 
the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, 
they shall not overflow thee ;" and he was not the less 
instant in prayer that his blood was up with his ride. 
He never again saw Mrs. Robertson, or as she was called 
when they were young", Sibbie (Sibella) Pirie. On com- 
ing out he said nothing, but took the chestnut, mounted 
her, and we came home quietly. His heart was opened ; 
he spoke of old times and old friends ; he stopped at the 
exquisite view at Hailes into the valley, and up the 
Pentlands beyond, the smoke of Kate's Mill rising in the 
still and shadowy air, and broke out into Cowper's 
words : Yes, 

" HE sets the bright procession on its way, 
And marshals all the order of the year ; 
And ere one flowery season fades and dies, 
Designs the blooming wonders of the next.' 1 

Then as we came slowly in, the moon shone behind 
Craiglockhart hill among the old Scotch firs ; he pulled 
up again, and gave me Collins' Ode to Evening, begin- 
ning— 

" If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 
Thy springs, and dying gales ;" 

repeating over and over some of the lines, as 

" Thy modest ear, 
Thy springs, and dying gales." 

" — And marks o'er all 
Thy dewy fingers draw 
The gradual dusky veil." 

And when she looked out on us clear and full, " Yes — 

" The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth." 

As we passed through Slateford, he spoke of Dr. 
Belfrage, his great-hearted friend, of his obligations to 
him, and of his son, my friend, both lying together in 
Colinton churchyard ; and of Dr. Dick, who was minis- 
ter before him, of the Coventrys, and of Stitchel and 
Sprouston, of his mother, and of himself, — his doubts of 



74 Iborae Subsecivae. 

his own sincerity in religion, his sense of sin, of God — 
reverting often to his dying friend. Such a thing only 
occurred to me with him once or twice all my life ; and 
then when we were home, he was silent, shut up, self- 
contained as before. He was himself conscious of this 
habit of reticence, and what may be called selfism to us, 
his children, and lamented it. I remember his saying in 
a sort of mournful joke, " I have a well of love ; I know 
it ; but it is a well, and a draw-well, to your sorrow and 
mine, and it seldom overflows, but," looking with that 
strange power of tenderness as if he put his voice and 
his heart into his eyes, " you may always come hither to 
draw ;" he used to say he might take to himself Words- 
worth's lines — 

" I am not one who much or oft delights 
To season my fireside with personal talk." 

And changing " though" into " if :" 

" A well of love it may he deep, 
I trust it is, and never dry ; 
What matter, though its waters sleep 
In silence and obscurity ?" 

The expression of his affection was more like the 
shock of a Leyden jar, than the continuous current of a 
galvanic circle. 

There was, as I have said, a permanent chill given by 
my mother's death, to what may be called the outer sur- 
face of his nature, and we at home felt it much. The 
blood was thrown in upon the centre, and went forth 
in energetic and victorious work, in searching the 
Scriptures and saving souls ; but his social faculty 
never recovered that shock ! it was blighted ; he was 
always desiring to be alone and at his work. A stranger 
who saw him for a short time, bright, animated, full of 
earnest and cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, the 
life of the company, was apt to think how delightful he 
must always be, — and so he was ; but these times of 
bright talk' were like angels' visits; and he smiled with 
peculiar benignity on his retiring guest, as if blessing 
him not the less for leaving him to himself. I question 
if there ever lived a man so much in the midst of men, 



Xcttcr to 5obn Cairns, 5>.2>. 75 

and in the midst of his own children,* in whom the 
silences, as Mr. Carlyle would say, were so predomi- 
nant. Every Sabbath he spoke out of the abundance 
of his heart, his whole mind ; he was then communica- 
tive and frank enough : all the week, before and after, 
he would not unwillingly have never opened his mouth. 
Of many people we may say that their mouth is always 
open except when it is shut ; of him that his mouth was 
always shut except when it was opened. Every one 
must have been struck with the seeming - inconsistency of 
his occasional brilliant, happy, energetic talk, and his 
habitual silentness — his difficulty in getting anything to 
say. But, as I have already said, what we lost, the world 
and the church gained. 

When travelling he was always in high spirits and full 
of anecdote and fun. Indeed I knew more of his inner 
history in this one way, than during years of living with 
him. I recollect his taking me with him to Glasgow when 
I must have been about fourteen ; we breakfasted in The 
Ram 's Hor?i Tavern, and I felt a new respect for him at 
his commanding the waiters. He talked a great deal 
during our short tour, and often have I desired to recal 
the many things he told me of his early life, and of his own 
religious crises, my mother's death, his fear of his own 
death, and all this intermingled with the drollest stories 
of his boy and student life. 

We went to Paisley and dined, I well remember, we 
two alone, and, as I thought, magnificently, in a great 
apartment in The Saracen's Head, at the end of which 
was the county ball-room. We had come across from 
Dunoon and landed in a small boat at the Water Neb 
along with Mrs. Dr. Hall, a character Sir Walter or Gait 
would have made immortal. My father with character- 
istic ardour took an oar, for the first time in his life, and 
I believe for the last, to help the old boatman on the Cart, 
and wishing to do something decided, missed the water, 
and went back head over heels to the immense enjoyment 
of Mrs. Hall, who said, " Less pith, and mair to the pur- 
pose, my man." She didn't let the joke die out. 

* He gave us all the education we got ;it I'.iggar. 



76 Iborae Subsecivac. 

Another time — it was when his second marriage was 
fixed on, to our great happiness and his — I had just taken 
my degree of M. D., and he took Isabella, William, and 
myself to Moffat. By a curious felicity we got into Miss 
Gedde's lodgings, where the village circulating library was 
kept, the whole of which we aver he read in ten days. I 
never saw him so happy, so open and full of mirth, read- 
ing to us, and reciting the poetry of his youth. On these 
rare but delightful occasions he was fond of exhibiting, 
when asked, his powers of rapid speaking, in which he 
might have rivalled old Matthews or his son. His favourite 
feat was repeating, " Says I to my Lord, quo' I — what for 
will ye no grund ma barleymeal mouterfree, says I to my 
Lord, quo' I, says I, I says." He was brilliant upon the 
final " I says." Another cJuf-d 'ceuvre was, " On Tintock 
tap there is a mist, and in the mist there is a kist (a chest), 
and in the kist there is a cap (a wooden bowl), and in the 
cap there is a drap, tak' up the cap, and sup the drap, and 
set the cap on Tintock tap." This he could say, if I 
mistake not, five times without drawing breath. It was a 
favourite passage this, and he often threatened to treat it 
exegetically ; laughing heartily when I said, in that case, 
he would not have great trouble with the context, which 
in others cost him a good deal. 

His manners to ladies, and indeed to all women, were 
those of a courtly gentleman; they could be romantic in their 
empresscment and devotion, and I used to think Sir Philip 
Sydney, or Ariosto's knights and the Paladins of old, must 
have looked and moved as he did. He had great pleasure 
in the company of high-bred, refined, thoughtful women ; 
and he had a peculiar sympathy with the sufferings, the 
necessary mournfulness of women, and with all in their 
lot connected with the fruit of that forbidden tree — their 
loneliness, the sorrows of their time, and their pangs in 
travail, their peculiar relation to their children. I think I 
hear him reading the words, " Can a woman forget her 
sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the 
son of her womb ? Yea" (as if it was the next thing 
to impossible), " she may forget, yet will not I forget 
thee." Indeed, to a man who saw so little of, and said so 
little to his own children, perhaps it may be because of all 



Xcttcr to 5obn Cairns, 5>.5). 77 

this, his sympathy for mothers under loss of children, his 
real suffering- for their suffering, not only endeared him to 
them as their minister, their consoler, and gave him oppor- 
tunities of dropping in divine and saving- truth and com- 
fort, when the heart was full and soft, tender, and at his 
mercy, but it brought out in his only loss of this kind, the 
mingled depth, tenderness, and also the peremptoriness 
of his nature. 

In the case of the death of little Maggie — a child the 
very image of himself in face, lovely and pensive, and yet 
ready for any fun, with a keenness of affection that perilled 
everything on being loved, who must cling to some one 
and be clasped, made for a garden, for the first garden, 
not for the rough world, the child of his old age — this 
peculiar meeting of opposites was very marked. She was 
stricken with sudden illness, malignant sore throat; her 
mother was gone, and so she was to my father as a flower 
he had the sole keeping of; and his joy in her wild mirth, 
his watching her childish moods of sadness, as if a shadow 
came over her young heaven, were themselves something 
to watch. Her delicate life made no struggle with dis- 
ease : it as it were declined to stay on such conditions. 
She therefore sunk at once and without much pain, her 
soul quick and unclouded, and her little forefinger playing 
to the last with my father's silvery curls, her eyes trying 
in vain to brighten his : — 

" Thou wert a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, 
Not fitted to be trailed along the soiling earth ; 
But at the touch of wrong, without a strife, 
Slips in a moment out of life." 

His distress, his anguish at this stroke, was not only in- 
tense, it was in its essence permanent ; he went mourning 
and looking for her all his days; but after she was dead, 
that resolved will compacted him in an instant. It was on 
a Sabbath morning she died, and he was all day at church, 
not many yards from where lay her little corpse alone in 
the house. His colleague preached in the forenoon, and 
in the afternoon he took his turn, saying before beginning 
his discourse: — "It has pleased the Father of Lights to 
darken one of the lights of my dwelling — had the child 



78 Iborac Subseclx>ae. 

lived I would have remained with her, but now I have 
thought it right to arise and come into the house of the 
Lord to worship." Such violence to one part of his 
nature by that in it which was supreme, injured him : it 
was like pulling up on the instant an express train ; the 
whole inner organization is minutely, though it may be in- 
visibly hurt ; its molecular constitution damaged by the 
cruel stress and strain. Such things are not right ; they 
are a cruelty and injustice and injury from the soul to the 
body, its faithful slave, and they bring down, as in his 
case they too truly did, their own certain and specific ret- 
ribution. A man who did not feel keenly might have 
preached ; a man whose whole nature was torn, shattered, 
and astonished as his was, had in a high sense no right 
so to use himself ; and when too late he opened his eyes 
to this. It was part of our old Scottish severe unsparing 
character — calm to coldness outside, burning to fierceness, 
tender to agony within. 

I was saying how much my father enjoyed women's 
company. He liked to look on them, and watch them, 
listening* to their keen, unconnected, and unreasoning, 
but not unreasonable talk. Men's argument, or rather 
arguing, and above all debating, he disliked. He had 
no turn for it. He was not combative, much less conten- 
tious. He was, however, warlike. Anything that he 
could destroy, any falsehood or injustice, he made for, 
not to discuss, but to expose and kill. He could not f c nce 
with his mind much less with his tongue, and had no love 
for the exploits of a nimble dialectic. He had no readiness 
either in thought or word for this ; his way was slowly to 
thi7ik out a subject, to get it well " bottomed," as Locke 
would say ; he was not careful as to recording the steps 
he took in their order, but the spirit of his mind was log- 
ical, as must be that of all minds who seek and find truth, 

_ * One day my mother, and her only sister, Agnes — married to James 
Aitken of Callands, a man before his class and his time, for long the only 
Whig and Seceder laird in Peeblesshire, and with whom my father shared 
the Edinburgh Review from its beginning — the two sisters who were, the 
one to the other, as Martha was to Mary, sat talking of their household do- 
ings ; my aunt was great upon some things she could do ; my father looked 
up from his book, and said, " There is one thing, Mrs. Aitken, you cannot 
do — you cannot turn the heel of a stocking ;" and he was right, he had no- 
ticed her make over this " kittle" turn to her mother, 



Xetter to 5obn Cairns, D.2>. 79 

for logic is nothing else than the arithmetic of thought ; 
having therefore thought it out, he proceeded to put it 
into formal expression. This he did so as never again 
to undo it. His mind seemed to want the wheels by 
which this is done, vestigia nulla reirorsum, and having 
stereotyped it, he was never weary of it ; it never lost its 
life and freshness to him, and he delivered it as emphat- 
ically thirty years after it had been cast, as the first hour 
of its existence. 

I have said he was no swordsman, but he was a heavy 
shot ; he fired off his ball, compact, weighty, the maxi- 
mum of substance in the minimum of bulk ; he put in 
double charge, pointed the muzzle, and fired, with what 
force and sharpness we all remember. If it hit, good ; 
if not, all he could do was to load again, with the same 
ball, and in the same direction. You must come to him 
to be shot, at least you must stand still, for he had a 
want of mobility of mind in great questions. He could 
not stalk about the field like a sharp-shooter ; his was a 
great sixty-eight pounder, and it was not much of a 
swivel. Thus it was that he rather dropped into the 
minds of others his authoritative assertions, and left 
them to breed conviction. If they gave them entrance 
and cherished them, they would soon find how full of 
primary truth they were, and how well they would serve 
them, as they had served him. With all this heavy 
artillery, somewhat slow and cumbrous, on great ques- 
tions, he had no want, when he was speaking off-hand, 
of quick snell remark, often witty and full of spirit, and 
often too unexpected, like lightning — flashing, smiting 
and gone. In Church Courts this was very marked. 
On small ordinary matters, a word from him would 
settle a long discussion. He would, after lively, easy 
talk with his next neighbour, set him up to make a 
speech, which was conclusive. But on great questions 
he must move forward his great gun with much solem- 
nity and effort, partly from his desire to say as much of 
the truth at once as he could, partly from the natural 
concentration and rapidity of his mind in action, as 
distinguished from his slowness when incubating, or in 
the process of thought, — and partly from a sort of self- 



80 Iborae Subsecfvme. 

consciousness — I might almost call it a compound of 
pride and nervous diffidence — which seldom left him. 
He desired to say it so that it might never need to be 
said again or otherwise by himself, or any one else. 

This strong personality, along with a prevailing love to 
be alone, and dwell with thoughts rather than with 
thinkers, pervaded his entire character. His religion 
was deeply personal,* not only as affecting himself, but 
as due to a personal God, and presented through the 
sacrifice and intercession of the God-man ; and it was 
perhaps owing to his " conversation" being so habitually 
in heaven — his social and affectionate desires filling 
themselves continually from " all the fulness of God," 
through living faith and love— that he the less felt the 
need of giving and receiving human affection. 1 never 
knew any man who lived more truly under the power, 
and sometimes under the shadow of the world to come. 
This world had to him little reality except as leading to 
the next ; little interest, except as the time of probation 
and sentence. A child brought to him to be baptized 
was in his mind, and in his words, " a young immortal to 
be educated for eternity;" a birth was the beginning of 
what was never to end ; sin — his own and that of the 
race — was to him, as it must be to all men who can 
think, the great mystery, as it is the main curse of time. 
The idea of it — of its exceeding sinfulness — haunted and 
oppressed him. He used to say of John Foster, that this 
deep and intense, but sometimes narrow and grim 
thinker, had, in his study of the disease of the race, been, 
as it were, fascinated by its awful spell, so as almost to 
forget the remedy. This was not the case with himself. 
As you know, no man held more firmly to the objective 
reality of his religion — that it was founded upon fact. It 
was not the polestar he lost sight of, or the compass he 
mistrusted ; it was the sea-worthiness of the vessel. His 
constitutional deficiency of hope, his sensibility to sin, 
made him not unfrequently stand in doubt of himself, of 
his sincerity and safety before God, and sometimes made 

* In his own words, u A personal Deity is the soul of Natural Religion ; 
a personal Saviour — the real living Christ— is the soul of Revealed Relig- 
ion. " 



Xetter to John Cairns, 5>.S>. 81 

existence — the being obliged to continue to be — a doubt- 
ful privilege. 

When oppressed with this feeling, — " the burden and 
the mystery of all this unintelligible world," the hurry of 
mankind out of this brief world into the unchangeable 
and endless next, — I have heard him, with deep feeling, 
repeat Andrew Marvel's strong lines : — 

" But at my back I always hear 

Time's winged chariots hurrying near ; 
And yonder all before me lie 
Deserts of vast eternity." 

His living so much on books, and his strong personal 
attachment to men, as distinct from his adhesion to their 
principles and views, made him, as it were, live and com- 
mune with the dead — made him intimate, not merely with 
their thoughts, and the public events of their lives, but 
with themselves — Augustine, Milton, Luther, Melanch- 
thon, George Herbert, Baxter, Howe, Owen, Leighton, 
Barrow, Bunyan, Philip and Matthew Henry, Doddridge, 
Defoe, Marvel, Locke, Berkeley, Halliburton, Cowper, 
Gray, Johnson, Gibbon, and David Hume,* Jortin, Boston, 
Bengel, Neander, etc., not to speak of the apostles, and 
above all, his chief friend the author of the Epistle to the 
Romans, whom he looked on as the greatest of men, — 
with all these he had personal relations as men, he cor- 
dialized with them. He had thought much more about 
them — would have had more to say to them had they 
met, than about or to any but a very few living men.** 

* David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature he knew thoroughly, and 
read it carefully during his last illness. He used to say it not only was a 
miracle of intellectual and literary power for a man of twenty-eight, but 
contained the essence of all that was best on the philosophy of mind ; 
" It's all there, if you will think it out." 

** This tendency was curiously seen in his love of portraits, especially 
of men whose works he had and liked. He often put portraits into his 
books, and he seemed to enjoy this way of realizing their authors ; and in 
exhibitions of pictures he was more taken up with what is usually and 
justly the most tiresome department, the portraits, than with all else. He 
was not learned in engravings, and made no attempt at collecting them, so 
that the following list of portraits in his rooms shows his liking for the 
men much more than for the art which delineated them. Of course they 
by no means include all his friends, ancient and modern, but they all 
were his friends : — 

Robert Hall — Dr. Carey — IVfelanchthon — Calvin — Pojlok — Erasmus 



82 Iborae Subsecivae. 

He delighted to possess books which any of them might 
have held in their hands, on which they had written their 
names. He had a number of these, some very curious ; 
among others, that wild soldier, man of fashion and wit 
among the reformers, Ulric von Hutten's autograph on 
Erasmus' beautiful folio Greek Testament, and John 
Howe's (spelt How) on the first edition of Milton's Speech 
on Unlicensed Printing.* He began collecting books 

(very like " Uncle Ebenezer") — John Knox — Dr. Waugh — John Milton 
(three, all framed)— Dr. Dick— Dr. Hall— Luther (two)— Dr. Heugh— Dr. 
Mitchell — Dr. Balmer — Dr. Henderson — Dr. Wardlaw — Shakspere (a small 
oil painting which he had since ever I remember) — Dugald Stewart — Dr. 
Innes — Dr. Smith, Biggar — the two Erskines and Mr. Fisher— Dr. John 
Taylor of Toronto— Dr. Chalmers— Mr. William Ellis, Rev. James Elles 
—J. B. Patterson— Vinet— Archibald M'Lean— Dr. John Erskine— Tho- 
luck — John Pym — Gesenius — Professor Finlayson — Richard Baxter — Dr. 
Lawson— Dr. Peddie (two, and a copy of Joseph's noble bust) ; and they 
were thus all about him for no other reason than that he liked to look at 
and think of them through their countenances. 

* In a copy of Baxter's Life and Times, which he picked up at Maurice 
Ogle's shop in Glasgow, which had belonged to Anna, Countess of Argyll, 
besides her autograph, there is a most affecting and interesting note in 
that venerable lady's handwriting. It occurs on the page where Baxter 
brings a charge of want of veracity against her eldest and name-daughter 
who was perverted to Popery. They are in a hand tremulous with age 
and feeling : — " I can say w l ruth I neuer in all my lyff did hear hir ly, 
and what she said, if it was not trew, it was by others sugested to hir, as 
y l she wold embak on Wedensday. She belived she wold, bot thy took 
hir, alles ! from me who never did sie her mor. The minester of Cuper, 
Mr. John Magill, did sie hir at Paris in the convent. Said she was a 
knowing and vertuous person, and hed retined the living principels of our 
relidgon, which made him say it was good to grund young persons weel in 
ther relidgion, as she was one it appired weel grunded." 

The following is Lord Lindsay's letter, on seeing this remarkable 
marginal note : — 

Edinburgh, Douglas 1 Hotel, 
26th December 1856. 

My dear Sir, — I owe you my sincerest thanks for your kindness in 
favouring me with a sight of the volume of Baxter's Life, which formerly 
belonged to my ancestrix, Anna, Countess of Argyll. The MS. note in- 
serted by her in it respecting her daughter is extremely interesting. I had 
always been under the impression that the daughter had died very shortly 
after her removal to France, but the contrary appears from Lady Argyll's 
memorandum. That memorandum throws also a pleasing light on the later 
life of Lady Anna, and forcibly illustrates the undying love and tenderness 
of the aged mother, who must have been very old when she penned it, the 
book having been printed as late as 1696. 

I am extremely obliged to you for communicating to me this new and 
very interesting information. — Believe me, my dear Sir, your much obliged 
and faithful servant, 

Lindsay, 

John Brown, Esq., M.D. 



Xetter to 3obn Cairns, S>.2>. 83 

when he was twelve, and he was collecting- up to his last 
hours. He cared least for merely fine books, though he 
enjoyed, no one more so, fine type, good binding-, and all 
the niceties of the book-fancier. What he liked were 
such books as were directly useful in his work, and such 
as he liked to live in the midst of ; such, also, as illus- 
trated any great philosophical, historical, or ecclesiastical 
epoch. His collection of Greek Testaments was, consid- 
ering his means, of great extent and value, and he had a 
quite singular series of books, pamphlets, and documents, 
referring not merely to his own body — the Secession, with 
all its subdivisions and reunions — but to Nonconformity 
and Dissent everywhere, and, indeed, to human liberty, 
civil and religious, in every form, — for this, after the great 
truths, duties, and expectations of his faith, was the one 
master passion of his life — liberty in its greatest sense, the 
largest extent of individual and public spontaneity con- 
sistent with virtue and safety. He was in this as intense, 
persistent in his devotion, as Sydney, Locke, or old Hollis. 
For instance, his admiration of Lord Macaulayas a writer 
and a man of letters, an orator and a statesman, great as 
it was, was as nothing to his gratitude to him for having 
placed permanently on record, beyond all risk of obscura- 
tion or doubt, the doctrine of 1688 — the right and power 
of the English people to be their own lawgivers, and to 
appoint their own magistrates, of whom the sovereign is 
the chief. 

His conviction of the sole right of God to be Lord of 
the conscience, and his sense of his own absolute religious 
independence of every one but his Maker, were the two 
elements in building up his beliefs on all church matters ; 
they were twin beliefs. Hence the simplicity and thor- 
oughness of his principles. Sitting in the centre, he 
commanded the circumference. But I am straying out of 
my parish into yours. I only add to what you have said, 
that the longer he lived, the more did he insist upon it 
being not less true and not less important, that the Church 
must not intermeddle with the State, than that the State 
must not intermeddle with the Church. He used to say, 
" Go down into the world, with all its complications and 
confusions, with this double-edged weapon, and you can 



84 Iborae Subeectvae. 

cut all the composite knots of Church and State." The 
element of God and of eternity predominates in the relig- 
ious more than in the civil affairs of men, and thus far 
transcends them ; but the principle of mutual indepen- 
dence is equally applicable to each. All that statesmen, as 
such, have to do with religion, is to be themselves under 
its power ; all that Christians, as such, have to do with 
the State, is to be good citizens. 

The fourth epoch of his personal life I would date from 
his second marriage. As I said before, no man was ever 
happier in his wives. They had much alike in nature, — 
only one could see the Divine wisdom of his first wife 
being his first, and his second his second ; each did best 
in her own place and time. His marriage with Miss Crum 
was a source of great happiness and good not only to 
himself, but to us his first children. She had been inti- 
mately known to us for many years, and was endeared to 
us long before we saw her, by her having been, as a child 
and girl, a great favourite of our own mother. The 
families of my grandfather Nimmo, and of the Crums, 
Ewings, and Maclaes, were very intimate, I have heard 
my father tell, that being out at Thornliebank with my 
mother, he asked her to take a walk with him to the 
Rouken, a romantic waterfall and glen up the burn. My 
mother thought they might take " Miss Margaret " with 
them, and so save appearances, and with Miss Crum, 
then a child of ten, holding my father's hand, away the 
three went ! 

So you may see that no one could be nearer to being 
our mother ; and she was curiously ingenious, and com- 
pletely successful in gaining our affection and regard. I 
nave, as a boy, a peculiarly pleasant remembrance of her, 
having been at Thornliebank when about fourteen, and 
getting that impression of her gentle, kind, wise, calm, and 
happy nature — her entire loveableness — which it was our 
privilege to see ministering so much to my father's comfort. 
That fortnight in 1824 or 1825 is still to me like the mem- 
ory of some happy dream ; the old library, the big chair 
in which I huddled myself up for hours with the New 
Arabian Nights, and all the old-fashioned and unforgotten 
books I found there, the ample old garden, the wonders 



Xetter to 3obn Cairns, 2>.2>. 85 

of machinery and skill going on in " the works," the large 
water-wheel going its stately rounds in the midst of its 
own darkness, the petrifactions I excavated in the bed of 
the burn, ammonites, etc., and brought home to my 
museum (!) ; the hospitable lady of the house, my heredi- 
tary friend, dignified, anxious and kind; and above all, her 
only daughter who made me a sort of pet, and was always 
contriving some unexpected pleasure, — all this feels to me 
even now like something out of a book. 

My father's union with Miss Crum was not only one of 
the best blessings of his life, — it made him more of a bless- 
ing to others, than it is likely he would otherwise have 
been. By her cheerful, gracious ways, her love for society 
as distinguished from company, her gift of making every 
one happy and at ease when with her, and her tender 
compassion for all suffering, she in a measure won my 
father from himself and his books, to his own great good, 
and to the delight and benefit of us all. It was like sun- 
shine and a glad sound in the house. She succeeded in 
what is called " drawing out" the inveterate solitary. 
Moreover, she encouraged and enabled him to give up a 
moiety of his ministerial labours, and thus to devote him- 
self to the great work of his later years, the preparing for 
and giving to the press the results of his life's study of 
God's Word. We owe entirely to her that immense ar- 
mamentarium libertatis, the third edition of his treatise 
on Civil Obedience. 

One other source of great happiness to my father by 
this marriage was the intercourse he had with the family 
at Thornliebank, deepened and endeared as this was by 
her unexpected and irreparable loss. But on this I must 
not enlarge, nor on that death itself, the last thing in the 
world he ever feared — leaving him once more, after a 
brief happiness, and when he had still more reason to hope 
that he would have " grown old with her, leaning on her 
faithful bosom." The urn was again empty — and the 
only word was vale ! he was once more viduus, bereft. 

" God gives us love ; something to love 
He lends us ; but, when love is grown 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 

Falls off, and love is left alone. 
This is the curse of time." — 



86 Ifoorae Subeecivae. 

But still 

" "Tis better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all." 

It was no easy matter to get him from home and away 
from his books. But once orT, he always enjoyed him- 
self, — especially in his visits to Thornliebank, Busby, 
Crofthead, Biggar, and Melrose. He was very fond of 
preaching on these occasions, and his services were always 
peculiarly impressive. He spoke more slowly and with 
less vehemence than in his own pulpit, and, as I often 
told him, with all the more effect. When driving about 
Biggar, or in the neighbourhood of Langrig, he was full of 
the past, showing how keenly, with all his outward reserve, 
he had observed and felt. He had a quite peculiar inter- 
est in his three flocks, keeping his eye on all their members, 
through long years of absence. 

His love for his people and for his " body " was a spe- 
cial love ; and his knowledge of the Secession, through 
all its many divisions and unions, — his knowledge, not 
only of its public history, with its immense controver- 
sial and occasional literature, but of the lives and peculi- 
arities of its ministers, — was of the most minute and 
curious kind. He loved all mankind, and especially such 
as were of " the household of faith ;" and he longed 
for the time when, as there was one Shepherd, there would 
be but one sheepfold ; but he gloried in being not only a 
Seceder, but a Burgher ; and he often said, that take them 
all in all, he knew no body of professing Christians in any 
country or in any time, worthier of all honour than that 
which was founded by the Four Brethren, not only as God- 
fearing, God-serving men, but as members of civil society ; 
men who on every occasion were found on the side of 
liberty and order, truth and justice. He used to say he 
believed there was hardly a Tory in the Synod, and that 
no one but He whose service is perfect freedom, knew the 
public good done, and the public evil averted, by the 
lives and the principles, and when need was, by the 
votes of such men, all of whom were in the working- 
classes, or in the lower ha'f of the middle. The great 
Whig leaders knew this, and could always depend on 
the Seceders. 



Xettcr to 5omt Cairns, S>.2). 87 

There is no worthy portrait of my father in his prime. 
I believe no man was ever more victimized in the way of 
being asked to " sit ;" indeed, it was probably from so 
many of them being- of this kind that the opportunity of 
securing a really good one was lost. The best — the one 
portrait of his habitual expression — is Mr. Harvey's, done 
tor Mr. Crum of Busby : it was taken when he was failing, 
but it is an excellent likeness as well as a noble picture ; 
such a picture as one would buy without knowing any- 
thing of the subject. So true it is, that imaginative painters, 
men gifted and accustomed to render their own ideal con- 
ceptions in form and colour, grasp and impress on their 
canvas the features of real men more to the quick, more 
faithfully as to the central qualities of the man, than pro- 
fessed portrait painters. 

Steell's bust is beautiful, but it is wanting in expression. 
Slater's, though rude, is better. Angus Fletcher's has 
much of his air, but is too much like a Grecian god. 
There is a miniature by Mrs. Robertson of London, be- 
longing to my sister, Mrs. Young, which I always liked, 
though more like a gay, brilliant French Abbe, than the 
Seceder minister of Rose Street, as he then was. It gives, 
however, more of his exquisite brightness and spirit, the 
dancing light in his dark eyes, and his smile, when pleased 
and desiring to please, than any other. I have a drawing 
by Mr. Harvey, done from my father for his picture of 
the Minister's Visit, which I value very much, as giving 
the force and depth, the momentum, so to speak, of his 
serious look. He is sitting in a cottar's house, reading 
the Bible to an old bed-ridden woman, the farm servants 
gathered round to get his word. 

Mungo Burton painted a good portrait which my brother 
William has ; from his being drawn in a black neckcloth, 
and standing, he looks as he sometimes did, more like a 
member of Parliament than a clergyman. The print from 
this is good and very scarce. Of Photographs, I like 
D. O. Hill's best, in which he is represented as shaking 
hands with the (invisible) Free Church — it is full of his ear- 
nest, cordial power ; that by Tunny, from which the beauti- 
ful engraving by Lumb Stocks in this Memoir was taken, is 
very like what he was about a year and a half before his 



88 Iborae Subsectvae. 

death. All the other portraits, as far as I can remember, 
are worthless and worse, missing entirely the true ex- 
pression. He was very difficult to take, partly because 
he was so full of what may be called spiritual beauty, 
evanescent, ever changing, and requiring the highest kind 
of genius to fix it ; and partly from his own fault, for he 
thought it was necessary to be lively, or rather to try to be 
so to his volunteering artist, and the consequence was, 
his giving them, as his habitual expression, one which 
was rare, and in this particular case more made than 
born. 

The time when I would have liked his look to have 
been perpetuated, was that of all others the least likely, or 
indeed possible ; — it was, when after administering the 
Sacrament to his people, and having solemnized everyone, 
and been himself profoundly moved by that Divine, ever- 
lasting memorial, he left the elders' seat and returned to 
the pulpit, and after giving out the psalm, sat down wearied 
and satisfied, filled with devout gratitude to his Master — 
his face pale, and his dark eyes looking out upon us all, 
his whole countenance radiant and subdued. Any like- 
ness of him in this state, more like that of the protomartyr, 
when his face was as that of an angel, than anything I 
ever beheld, would have made one feel what it is so im- 
possible otherwise to convey, — the mingled sweetness, 
dignity, and beauty of his face. When it was winter, and 
the church darkening, and the lights at the pulpit were 
lighted so as to fall upon his face and throw the rest of 
the vast assemblage into deeper shadow, the effect of his 
countenance was something never to forget. 

He was more a man of power than of genius in the 
ordinary sense. His imagination was not a primary power ; 
it was not originative, though in a quite uncommon degree 
receptive, having the capacity of realizing the imaginations 
of others, and through them bodying forth the unseen. 
When exalted and urged by the understanding, and heat- 
ed by the affections, it burst out with great force, but 
always as servant, not master. But if he had no one 
faculty that might be, to use the loose words of common 
speech, original, he was so as a whole, — such a man as 
stood alone. No one ever mistook his look, or would, 



better to Sobn Cairns, 2).2>. 89 

had they been blind, have mistaken his voice or words, 
or those of any one else, or any one else's for his. 

His mental characteristics, if I may venture on such 
ground, were clearness and vigour, intensity, fervour,* con- 
centration, penetration, and perseverance, — more of depth 
than width.** The moral conditions under which he 
lived were the love, the pursuit, and the practice of truth 
in everything; strength and depth, rather than external 
warmth of affection ; fidelity to principles and to friends. 
He used often to speak of the moral obligation laid upon 
every man to think truly, as well as to speak and act 
truly, and said that much intellectual demoralization and 
ruin resulted from neglecting this. He was absolutely 
tolerant of all difference of opinion, so that it was sincere ; 
and this was all the more remarkable from his being the 
opposite of an indifferentist, being very strong in his own 
convictions, holding them keenly, even passionately, while, 
from the structure of his mind, he was somehow deficient 
in comprehending, much less of sympathizing with the 
opinions of men who greatly differed from him. This 
made his homage to entire freedom of thought all the 
more genuine and rare. In the region of theological 
thought he was scientific, systematic, and authoritative, 
rather than philosophical and speculative. He held so 
strongly that the Christian religion was mainly a religion 
of facts, that he perhaps allowed too little to its also 
being a philosophy that was ready to meet, out of its own 
essence and its ever unfolding powers, any new form of 
unbelief, disbelief, or misbelief, and must front itself to 
them as they moved up. 

* This earnestness of nature pervaded all his exercises. A man of 
great capacity and culture, with a head like Benjamin Franklin's, an 
avowed unbeliever in Christianity, came every Sunday afternoon, for many 
years, to hear him. I remember his look well, as if interested, but not 
impressed. He was often asked by his friends why he went when he 
didn't believe one word of what he heard. " Neither I do, but I like to 
hear and to see a man earnest once a week, about anything." It is 
related of David Hume, that having heard my great-grandfather preach, 
he said, " That's the man for me, he means what he says ; he speaks as 
if Jesus Christ was at his elbow." 

** The following note from the pen to which we owe "St. Paul's 
Thorn in the Flesh" is admirable, both for its reference to my father, and 
its own beauty and truth. 

" One instance of his imperfect discernment of ass iciations of thought 
that were not of a purely logical character was afforded, we used to think, 



90 Iborae Subsccivae/ 

With devotional feeling — with everything that showed 
reverence and godly fear — he cordialized wherever and in 
whomsoever it was found, — Pagan or Christian, Romanist 

by the decided and almost contemptuous manner in which he always 
rejected the theory of what is called the double interpretation of 
prophecy. This, of course, is not the place to discuss whether he was 
absolutely right or wrong in his opinion. The subject, however, is one of 
somewhat curious interest, and it has also a strictly literary as well as a 
theological aspect, and what we have to say about it shall relate exclu- 
sively to the former. When Dr. Brown then said, as he was accustomed 
in his strong way to do, that ' if prophecy wascapable of two senses, it 
was impossible it could have any sense at all,' it is plain, we think, that he 
forgot the specific character of prophetic literature, viz., its being in the 
highest degree poetic. Now everyone knows that poetry of a very ele- 
vated cast almost invariably possesses great breadth, variety, we may say 
multiplicity of meaning. Its very excellence consists in its being capable 
of two, three, or many meanings and applications. Take, for example, 
these familiar lines in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream : '— 

" Ah me ! for aught that ever I could read, 
Could ever hear by tale or history, 
The course of true love never did run smooth : 
But either it was different in blood, 
Or else misgraffed in respect of years, 
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ; 
Or if there were a sympathy in choice, 
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, 
Making it momentary as a sound, 
Swift as a shadow,short as any dream, 
Brief as the lightning in the collied night, 
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth. 
And ere a man hath power to say ' Behold ! ' 
The jaws of darkness do devour it up ; 
So quick bright things come to confusion." 

We remember once quoting these lines to a lady, and being rather 
taken aback by her remark, ' They are very beautiful, but I don't think 
they are true.' We really had forgot for the moment the straightforward, 
matter-of-fact sense of which they are capable, and were not adverting to 
the possibility of their being understood to mean that — nothing but love- 
crosses are going, and that no tolerable amount of comfort or happiness is 
to be found in the life matrimonial, or in any of the approaches towards it. 
Every intelligent student of Shakespere, however, will at once feel that 
the poet's mind speedily passes away from the idea with which he starts, 
and becomes merged in a far wider theme, viz., in the disenchantment to 
which all lofty imaginations are liable, the disappointment to which all 
extravagant earthly hopes and wishes are doomed. This, in fact, is dis- 
tinctly expressed in the last line, and in this sense alone can the words be 
regarded as at all touching or impressive. Sudden expansions and transi- 
tions of thought, then, are nothing more than what is common to all poetry ; 
and when we find the Hebrew bards, in their prophetic songs, mingling 
in the closest conjunction the anticipations of the glories of Solomon's 
reign, or the happy prospects of a return from Babylon, with the higher 
glory and happiness of Messiah's advent, such transitions of thought are in 
perfect accordance with the ordinary laws of poetry, and ought not to per- 
plex even the most unimaginative student of the Bible." 



Xcttcr to 3obn Calms, 2>.2>. 01 

or Protestant, bond or free ; and while he disliked, and 
had indeed a positive antipathy to intellectual mysticism, 
he had a great knowledge of and relish for such writers 
as Dr. Henry More, Culverwel, Scougall, Madame Guyon, 
\yhom (besides their other qualities) I may perhaps be 
allowed to call affectionate mystics, and for such poets as 
Herbert and Vaughan, whose poetry was pious, and their 
piety poetic. As I have said, he was perhaps too im- 
patient of all obscure thinking, from not considering that 
on certain subjects, necessarily in their substance, and on 
the skirts of all subjects, obscurity and vagueness, diffi- 
culty and uncertainty, are inherent, and must therefore 
appear in their treatment. Men who rejoiced in making 
clear things obscure, and plain things the reverse, he 
could not abide, and spoke with some contempt of those 
who were original merely from their standing on their 
heads, and tall from walking upon stilts. As you have 
truly said, his character mellowed and toned down in his 
later years, without in any way losing its own individuality, 
and its clear, vigorous, unflinching perception of and ad- 
diction to principles. 

His affectionate ways with his students were often very 
curious : he contrived to get at their hearts, and find out 
all their family and local specialities, in a sort of short-hand 
way, and he never forgot them in after life ; and watch- 
ing him with them at tea, speaking his mind freely and 
often jocularly upon all sorts of subjects, one got a 
glimpse of that union of opposites which made him so 
much what he was — he gave out far more liberally to 
them the riches of his learning and the deep thoughts of 
his heart, than he ever did among his full-grown brethren. 
It was like the flush of an Arctic summer, blossoming all 
over, out of and into the stillness, the loneliness, and the 
chill rigour of winter. Though authoritative in his class 
without any effort, he was indulgent to everything but 
conceit, slovenliness of mind and body, irreverence, and 
above all handling the Word of God deceitfully. On one 
occasion a student having delivered in the Hall a dis- 
course tinged with Arminianism, he said, " That may be 
the gospel according to Dr. Macknight, or the gospel 
according to Dr. Taylor of Norwich, but it is not the gos- 



92 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

pel according to the Apostle Paul ; and if I thought the 
sentiments expressed were his own, if I had not thought 
he has taken his thoughts from commentators without 
carefully considering them, I would think it my duty to 
him and to the church to make him no longer a student of 
divinity here." He was often unconsciously severe, from 
his saying exactly what he felt. On a student's ending 
his discourse, his only criticism was, " the strongest char- 
acteristic of this discourse is weakness," and feeling that 
this was really all he had to say, he ended. A young- 
gentleman on very good terms with himself, stood up to 
pray with his hands in his pockets, and among other 
things he put up a petition that he might " be delivered 
from the fear of man, which bringeth a snare ;" my 
father's only remark was, that there was part of his pray- 
er which seemed to be granted before it was asked. But 
he was always unwilling to criticise prayer, feeling it to 
be too sacred, and as it were beyond his province, except 
to deliver the true principles of all prayer, which he used 
to say were admirably given in the Shorter Catechism — 
" Prayer is an offering up of the desires of the heart to 
God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of 
Christ ; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowl- 
edgment of his mercies." 

For the " heroic " old man of Haddington my father had 
a peculiar reverence, as indeed we all have — as well we 
may. He was our king, the founder of our dynasty ; we 
dated from him, and he was " hedged " accordingly by a 
certain sacredness or " divinity." I well remember with 
what surprise and pride I found myself asked by a black- 
smith's wife in a remote hamlet among the hop gardens 
of Kent, if I was " the son of the Self-interpreting Bible." 
I possess, as an heirloom, the New Testament which my 
father fondly regarded as the one his grandfather, when a 
herd-laddie, got from the Professor who heard him ask for 
it, and promised him it if he could read a verse ; and he 
has in his beautiful small hand written in it what follows : — 
" He (John Brown of Haddington) had now acquired so 
much of Greek as encouraged him to hope that he might 
at length be prepared to reap the richest of all rewards 
which classical learning could confer on him, the capacity 




liuV, READ THIS, AND YOU SHALL HAVE IT FOK NOTHING." Page 93. 



Xettcr to 5obn Cairns, 5>.H>. 93 

of reading in the original tongue the blessed New Testa- 
ment of our Lord and Saviour. Full of this hope, he be- 
came anxious to possess a copy of the invaluable volume. 
One night, having committed the charge of his sheep to 
a companion, he set out on a midnight journey to St. 
Andrews, a distance of twenty-four miles. He reached 
his destination in the morning, and went to the book- 
seller's shop, asking for a copy of the Greek New Testa- 
ment. The master of the shop, surprised at such a 
request from a shepherd boy, was disposed to make game 
of him. Some of the professors coming into the shop, 
questioned the lad about his employment and studies. 
After hearing his tale, one of them desired the bookseller 
to bring the volume. He did so, and drawing it down, 
said, ' Boy, read this, and you shall have it for nothing.' 
The boy did so, acquitted himself to the admiration of 
his judges, and carried off his Testament, and when the 
evening arrived, was studying it in the midst of his flock 
on the braes of Abernethy." — Memoir of Rev. John Brown 
of Haddington, by Rev. J. B. Patterson. 

" There is reason to believe this is the New Testament 
referred to. The name on the opposite page was written 
on the fly-leaf. It is obviously the writing of a boy, and 
bears a resemblance to Mr. Brown's handwriting in mature 
life. It is imperfect, wanting a great part of the Gospel 
of Matthew. The autograph at the end is that of his son, 
Thomas, when a youth at college, afterwards Rev. Dr. 
Thomas Brown of Dalkeith. — J. B." 

I doubt not my father regarded this little worn old book, 
the sword of the Spirit which his ancestor so nobly won. 
and wore, and warred with, with not less honest venera- 
tion and pride than does his dear friend James Douglas of 
Cavers the Percy pennon borne away at Otterbourne. 
When I read, in Uncle William's admirable Life of his 
father, his own simple story of his early life — his loss of 
father and mother before he was eleven, his discovering 
(as true a discovery as Dr. Young's of the characters of the 
Rosetta stone, or Rawlinson's of the cuneiform letters) 
the Greek characters, his defence of himself against the 
astonishing and base charge of getting his learning from 
the devil (that shrewd personage would not have employ- 



94 Iborae Subsedvae. 

ed him on the Greek Testament), his eager, indomitable 
study, his running miles to and back again to hear a ser- 
mon after folding his sheep at noon, his keeping his family 
creditably on never more than ^50, and for long on £\o 
a year, giving largely in charity, and never wanting, as he 
said, " lying money" — when I think of all this, I feel what 
a strong, independent, manly nature he must have had. 
We all know his saintly character, his devotion to learning, 
and to the work of preaching and teaching ; but he seems 
to have been, like most complete men, full of humour and 
keen wit. Some of his snell sayings are still remembered. 
A lad of an excitable temperament waited on him, and 
informed him he wished to be a preacher of the gospel. 
My great-grandfather, rinding him as weak in intellect as 
he was strong in conceit, advised him to continue in his 
present vocation. The young man said, " But I wish to 
preach and glorify God." " My young friend, a man may 
glorify God making broom besoms ; stick to your trade, 
and glorify God by your walk and conversation." 

The late Dr. Husband of Dunfermline called on him 
when he was preparing to set out for Gifford, and was 
beginning to ask him some questions as to the place 
grace held in the Divine economy. " Come away wi' me, 
and I'll expound that ; but when I'm speaking, look you 
after my feet." They got upon a rough bit of common, 
and the eager and full-minded old man was in the midst 
of his unfolding the Divine scheme, and his student was 
drinking in his words, and forgetting his part of the 
bargain. His master stumbled and fell, and getting up, 
somewhat sharply said, " James, the grace o' God can do 
much, but it canna gi'e a man common sense ;" which is 
as good theology as sense. 

A scoffing blacksmith seeing him jogging up to a 
house near the smithy on his pony, which was halting, 
said to him, " Mr. Brown, ye're in the Scripture line the 
day — ' the legs o' the lame are not equal.' " " So is a 
parable in the mouth of a fool." 

On his coming to Haddington, there was one man who 
held out against his " call." Mr. Brown meeting him 
when they could not avoid each other, the non-content 
said, " Ye see, sir, I canna say what I dinna think, and I 



Xctter to John Cairns, 2>.2>. 95 

think ye're ower young and inexperienced for this 
charge." " So I think too, David, but it would never do 
for you and me to gang in the face d the hale congrega- 
tion /" 

The following - is a singular illustration of the prevail- 
ing dark and severe tone of the religious teaching of that 
time, and also of its strength : — A poor old woman, of 
great worth and excellent understanding, in whose con- 
versation Mr. Brown took much pleasure, was on her 
death-bed. Wishing to try her faith, he said to her, 
" Janet, what would you say if, after all He has done for 
you, God should let you drop into hell ?" " E'en's (even 
as) he likes; if he does, He 11 lose mair than F 11 do" 
There is something not less than sublime in this reply. 

Than my grandfather and " Uncle Ebenezer," no two 
brothers could be more different in nature or more united 
in affection. My grandfather was a man of great natural 
good sense, well read and well knowledged, easy but not 
indolent, never overflowing but never empty, homely but 
dignified, and fuller of love to all sentient creatures than 
any other human being I ever knew. I had, when a boy 
of ten, two rabbits, Oscar and Livia : why so named is a 
secret I have lost ; perhaps it was an Ossianic union of 
the Roman with the Gael. Oscar was a broad-nosed, 
manly, rather brusque husband, who used to snort when 
angry, and bite too ; Livia was a thin-faced, meek, and, I 
fear, deceitfullish wife, who could smile, and then bite. 
One evening I had lifted both these worthies, by the ears 
of course, and was taking them from their clover to their 
beds, when my grandfather, who had been walking out 
in the cool of the evening, met me. I had just kissed the 
two creatures, out of mingled love to them, and pleasure 
at having caught them without much trouble. He took 
me by the chin, and kissed me, and then Oscar and 
Livia! Wonderful man, I thought, and still think! 
doubtless he had seen me in my private fondness, and 
wished to please me. 

He was for ever doing good in his quiet yet earnest way. 
Not only on Sunday when he preached solid gospel 
sermons, full of quaint and familiar expressions, such as 
I fear few of my readers could take up, full of solemn, 



96 Iborae Subeecivae. 

affectionate appeals, full of his own simplicity and love, 
the Monday also found him ready with his everyday gos- 
pel. If he met a drover from Lochaber who had crossed 
the Campsie Hills, and was making across Carnwath 
Moor to the Calstane Slap, and thence into England by 
the drove-road, he accosted him with a friendly smile, — 
gave him a reasonable tract, and dropped into him some 
words of Divine truth. He was thus continually doing 
good. Go where he might, he had his message to every 
one ; to a servant lass, to a poor wanderer on the bleak 
streets, to gentle and simple — he flowed forever plena rivo. 

Uncle Ebenezer, on the other hand, flowed per salt urn ; 
he was always good and saintly, but he was great once a 
week ; six days he brooded over his message, was silent, 
withdrawn, self-involved; on the Sabbath, that downcast, 
almost timid man, who shunned men, the instant he was 
in the pulpit, stood up a son of thunder. Such a voice ! 
such a piercing eye ! such an inevitable forefinger, held 
out trembling with the terrors of the Lord ; such a power 
of asking questions and letting them fall deep into the 
hearts of his hearers, and then answering them himself, 
with an " ah, sirs !" that thrilled and quivered from him 
to them. 

I remember his astonishing us all with a sudden burst. 
It was a sermon upon the apparent plus of evil in this 
world, and he had driven himself and us all to despair — 
so much sin, so much misery — when, taking advantage of 
the chapter he had read, the account of the uproar at Eph- 
esus in the Theatre, he said, " Ah, sirs ! what if some of 
the men who, for ' about the space of two hours,' cried out, 
* Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' have for the space of 
eighteen hundred years and more been crying day and 
night, ' Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty; just and true are all thy ways, thou King of 
saints ; who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy 
name ? for thou only art holy.' " 

You have doubtless heard of the story of Lord Brougham 
going to hear him. It is very characteristic, and as I had it 
from Mrs. Cuninghame, who was present, I may be allowed 
to tell it. Brougham and Denman were on a visit to James 
Stuart of Dunearn, about the time of the Queen's trial. They 




He and the pony stumbled through the dumb and blinding 

snow." — Page 97. 



Xetter to John Cairns, S>.5>. 97 

had asked Stuart where they should go to church ; he said 
he would take them to a Seceder minister at Inverkeithingf, 
They went, and as Mr. Stuart had described the saintly old 
man. Brougham said he would like to be introduced to him, 
and arriving before service time, Mr. Stuart called, and left 
a message that some gentlemen wished to see him. The 
answer was that " Maister" Brown saw nobody before 
divine worship. He then sent in Brougham and Denman's 
names. " Mr. Brown's compliments to Mr. Stuart, and 
he sees nobody before sermon," and in a few minutes 
out came the stooping shy old man, and passed 
them, unconscious of their presence. They sat in the 
front gallery, and he preached a faithful sermon, full 
of hre and of native force. They came away greatly 
moved, and each wrote to Lord Jeffrey to lose not a week 
in coming to hear the greatest natural orator they had 
ever heard. Jeffrey came next Sunday, and often after 
declared he never heard such words, such a sacred, 
untaught gift of speech. Nothing was more beautiful 
than my father's admiration and emotion when listening 
to his uncle's rapt passages, or than his childlike faith in 
my father's exegetical prowess. He used to have a list 
of difficult passages ready for " my nephew," and the 
moment the oracle gave a decision, the old man asked 
him to repeat it, and then took a permanent note of it, 
and would assuredly preach it some day with his own 
proper unction and power. One story of him I must 
give ; my father, who heard it not long before his own 
death, was delighted with it, and for some days repeated 
it to every one. Uncle Ebenezer, with all his mildness 
and general complaisance, was, like most of the Browns, 
tiiiax propositi, firm to obstinacy. He had established 
a week-day sermon at the North Ferry, about two miles 
from his own town, Inverkeithing. It was, I think, on 
the Tuesdays. It was winter, and a wild, drifting, and 
dangerous day ; his daughters — his wife was dead — 
besought him not to go ; he smiled vaguely, but contin- 
ued getting into his big-coat. Nothing would stay him, 
and away he and the pony stumbled through the dumb 
and blinding snow. He was half-way on his journey, and 
had got into the sermon he was going to preach, and was 



98 Dorae Subsecivae* 

utterly insensible to the outward storm : his pony getting 
its feet balled, staggered about, and at last upset his 
master and himself into the ditch at the roadside. The 
feeble, heedless, rapt old man might have perished there, 
had not some carters, bringing up whisky casks from 
the Ferry, seen the catastrophe, and rushed up, raising 
him, and dichtirf him, with much commiseration and 
blunt speech — " Puir auld man, what brocht ye here in 
sic a day?" There they were, a rough crew, surrounding 
the saintly man, some putting on his hat, sorting and 
cheering him, and others knocking the balls off the pony's 
feet, and stuffing them with grease. He was most polite 
and grateful, and one of these cordial ruffians having 
pierced a cask, brought him a horn of whisky, and said 
" Tak that, it'll hearten ye." He took the horn, and 
bowing to them, siid, " Sirs, let us give thanks !" and 
there, by the road-side, in the drift and storm, with these 
wild fellows, he asked a blessing on it, and for his kind 
deliverers, and took a tasting of the horn. The men cried 
like children. They lifted him on his pony, one going 
with him, and when the rest arrived in Inverkeithing, they 
repeated the story to everybody, and broke down in tears 
whenever they came to the blessing. " And to think o' 
askin' a blessin' on a tass o' whisky !" Next Presbytery 
day, after the ordinary business was over, he rose up — 
he seldom spoke — and said, " Moderator, I have some- 
thing personal to myself to say. I have often said, that 
real kindness belongs only to true Christians, but" — and 
then he told the story of these men ; " but more true 
kindness I never experienced than from these lads. They 
may have had the grace of God, I don't know ; but I 
never mean again to be so positive in speaking of this 
matter." 

When he was on a missionary tour in the north, he one 
morning met a band of Highland shearers on their way to 
the harvest ; he asked them to stop and hear the word of 
God. They said they could not, as they had their wages 
to work for. He offered them what they said they would 
lose ; to this they agreed, and he paid them, and closing 
his eyes engaged in prayer ; when he had ended, he 
looked up, and his congregation had vanished ! His 



Xettcr to 5obn Cairns, 2>.2>. 99 

shrewd brother Thomas, to whom he complained of this 
faithlessness, said, " Eben, the next time ye pay folk to 
hear you preach, keep your eyes open, and pay them 
when you are done." I remember on another occasion, 
in Bristo Church, with an immense audience, he had been 
going- over the Scripture accounts of great sinners repent- 
ing and turning to God : repeating their names, from 
Manasseh onwards. He seemed to have closed the 
record, when, fixing his eyes on the end of the central 
passage, he called out abruptly, " I see a man !" Every 
one looked to that point — " I see a man of Tarsus ; and 
he says, Make mention of me !" It must not be supposed 
that the discourses of " Uncle Ebenezer," with these 
abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extem- 
pore ; they were carefully composed and written out, — 
onlv these flashes of thought and passion came on him 
suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural 
when delivered — they came on him again. 

The Rev. John Belfrage, M.D., had more power over 
my father's actions and his relations to the world, than 
any other of his friends : over his thoughts and convic- 
tions proper, not much — few living men had, and even 
among the mighty dead, he called no man master. He 
used to say that the three master intellects devoted to the 
study of divine truth since the apostles, were Augustine, 
Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, but that even they were 
only pritni inter pares, — this by the bye. 

On all that concerned his outward life as a public 
teacher, as a father, and as a member of society, he con- 
sulted Dr. Belfrage, and was swayed greatly by his 
judgment, as, for instance, the choice of a profession for 
myself, his second marriage, etc. He knew him to be 
his true friend, and not only wise and honest, but pre- 
eminently a man of affairs, cafiax rerum. Dr. Belfrage 
was a great man in posse, if ever I saw one, — " a village 
Hampden." Greatness was of his essence ; nothing paltry, 
nothing secondary, nothing untrue. Large in body, large 
and handsome in face, lofty in manner to his equals or 
superiors,* homely, familiar, cordial, with the young and 

* On one occasion, Mr. Hall of Kelso, an excellent but very odd man, 
in whom the ego was very strong, and who, if he had been a Spaniard, 



100 Iborae Subsecivae. 

the poor, — I never met with a more truly royal nature — 
more native and endued to rule, guide, and benefit man- 
kind. He was for ever scheming for the good of others, 
and chiefly in the way of helping them to help themselves. 
From a curious want of ambition — his desire for ad- 
vancement was for that of his friends, not for his own, 
and here he was ambitious and zealous enough, — from 
non-concentration of his faculties in early life, and from 
an affection of the heart which ultimately killed him — it 
was too big for his body, and, under the relentless 
hydrostatic law, at last shattered the tabernacle it moved, 
like a steam-engine too powerful for the vessel it finds 
itself in, — his mental heart also was too big for his happi- 
ness, — from these causes, along with a love for garden- 
ing, which was a passion, and an inherited competency, 
which took away what John Hunter calls " the stimulus 
of necessity," you may understand how this remarkable 
man, instead of being a Prime Minister, a Lord Chan- 
cellor, or a Dr. Gregory, a George Stephenson, or likeli- 
est of all, a John Howard, without some of his weaknesses, 
lived and died minister of the small congregation of 
Slateford, near Edinburgh. It is also true that he was a 
physician, and an energetic and successful one, and got 
rid of some of his love of doing good to and managing 
human beings in this way ; he was also an oracle in his 
district, to whom many had the wisdom to go to take as 
well as ask advice, and who was never weary of entering 
into the most minute details, and taking endless pains, 
being like Dr. Chalmers a strong believer in " the power 
of littles." It would be out of place, though it would be 
not uninteresting, to tell how this great resident power — 
this strong will and authority, this capacious, clear, and 
beneficent intellect — dwelt in its petty sphere, like an oak 
in a flower-pot ; but I cannot help recalling that signal 
act of friendship and of power in the matter of my 
father's translation from Rose Street to Broughton Place, 
to which you have referred. 

would, to adopt Coleridge's story, have taken off or touched his hat when- 
ever he spoke of himself, met Dr. Belfrage in the lobby of the Synod, and 
drawing himself up as he passed, he muttered, "high and michty !' 
" There's a pair of us, Mr. Hall." 



^Letter to 5obn Cairns, £>.5>. ioi 

It was one of the turning-points of my father's history. 
Dr. Belfrage, though seldom a speaker in the public 

courts of his Church, was always watchful of the interests 
of the people and of his friends. On the Rose Street 
question he had from the beginning formed a strong 
opinion. My father had made his statement, indicating 
his leaning, but leaving himself absolutely in the hands of 
the Synod. There were some speaking, all on one side, 
and for a time the Synod seemed to incline to be absolute, 
and refuse the call of Broughton Place. The house was 
everywhere crowded, and breathless with interest, my 
father sitting motionless, anxious, and pale, prepared to 
submit without a word, but retaining his own mind ; 
everything looked like a unanimous decision for Rose 
Street, when Dr. Belfrage rose up and came forward into 
the " passage," and with his first sentence and look, took 
possession of the house. He stated, with clear and simple 
argument, the truth and reason of the case ; and then 
having fixed himself there, he took up the personal inter- 
ests and feelings of his friend, and putting before them 
what they were about to do in sending back my father, 
closed with a burst of indignant appeal — " I ask you now, 
not as Christians, I ask you as gentlemen, are you pre- 
pared to do this ?" Every one felt it was settled, and so 
it was. My father never forgot this great act of his 
friend. 

This remarkable man, inferior to my father in learning, 
in intensity, in compactness and in power of — so to speak 
—focussing himself. — admiring his keen eloquence, his 
devotedness to his sacred art, rejoicing in his fame, jeal- 
ous of his honour — was, by reason of his own massive 
understanding, his warm and great heart, and his instinc- 
tive knowledge of men, my father's most valued friend, 
for he knew best and most of what my father knew least ; 
and on his death, my father said he felt himself thus far 
unprotected and unsafe. He died at Rothesay of hyper- 
trophy of the heart. I had the sad privilege of being 
with him to the last ; and any nobler spectacle of tender, 
generous affection, high courage, child-like submission to 
the Supreme Will, and of magnanimity in its true sense, 
I do not again expect to see. On the morning of his 



102 Ibovac Subsecivae, 

death he said to me, "John, come and tell me honestly 
how this is to end ; tell me the last symptoms in their se- 
quence." I knew the man, and was honest, and told him 
all I knew. " Is there any chance of stupor or delirium ?" 
" I think not. Death (to take Bichat's division) will begin 
at the heart itself, and you will die conscious." " I am 
glad of that. It was Samuel Johnson, wasn't it, who 
wished not to die unconscious, that he might enter the 
eternal world with his mind unclouded ; but you know, 
John, that was physiological nonsense. We leave the 
brain, and all this ruined body, behind ; but I would like 
to be in my senses when I take my last look of this 
wonderful world," looking across the still sea towards 
the Argyleshire hills, lying in the light of sunrise, " and 
of my friends — of you," fixing his eyes on a faithful friend 
and myself. And it was so ; in less than an hour he was 
dead, sitting erect in his chair — his disease had for weeks 
prevented him from lying down, — all the dignity, simplic- 
ity, and benignity of its master resting upon, and, as it 
were, supporting that "ruin," which he had left. 

I cannot end this tribute to my father's friend and mine, 
and my own dear and earliest friend's father, without 
recording one of the most extraordinary instances of the 
power of will, under the pressure of affection, I ever 
witnessed or heard of. Dr. Belfrage was twice married. 
His second wife was a woman of great sweetness and 
delicacy, not only of mind, but, to his sorrow, of consti- 
tution. She died, after less than a year of singular and 
unbroken happiness. There was no portrait of her. He 
resolved there should be one ; and though utterly ignorant 
of drawing, he determined to do it himself. No one else 
could have such a perfect image of her in his mind, and 
he resolved to realize this image. He got the materials 
for miniature painting, and, I think, eight prepared ivory 
plates. He then shut himself up from every one, and 
from everything, for fourteen days, and came out of his 
room, wasted and feeble, with one of the plates (the 
others he had used and burnt), on which was a portrait, 
full of subtle likeness, and drawn and coloured in a way 
no one could have dreamt of having had such an artist. 
I have seen it ; and though I never saw the original, 1 



Xcttcr to 5obn Cairns, D.2>. 103 

felt that it must be like, as indeed every one who knew 
her said it was. I do not, as I said before, know any- 
thing- more remarkable in the history of human sorrow 
and resolve. 

I remember well that Dr. Belfrage was the first man I 
ever heard speak of Free-trade in religion and in educa- 
tion. It was during- the first election after the Reform 
Bill, when Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair, 
was canvassing- the county of Mid-Lothian. They wen- 
walking in the doctor's garden, Sir John anxious, and 
gracious. Dr. Belfrage, like, I believe, every other min- 
ister in his body, was a thoroughgoing Liberal, what was 
then called a Whig ; but partly from his natural sense of 
humour and relish of power, and partly, I believe, for my 
benefit, he was putting the Baronet through his facings 
with some strictness, opening upon him startling views, 
and ending by asking him, " Are you, Sir John, for free- 
trade in corn, free-trade in education, free-trade in relig- 
ion ? I am." Sir John said, " Well, doctor, I have 
heard of free-trade in corn, but never in the other two." 
" You'll hear of them before ten years are gone, Sir John, 
or I'm mistaken." 

I have said thus much of this to me memorable man, 
not only because he was my father's closest and most 
powerful personal friend, but because by his word he 
probably changed the whole future course of his life. 
Devotion to his friends was one of the chief ends of his 
life, not caring much for, and having in the affection of 
Ins heart a warning against the perils and excitement of 
distinction and energetic public work, he set himself far 
more strenuously than for any selfish object, to promote 
the triumphs of those whom his acquired instinct — for he 
knew a man as a shepherd knows a sheep, or " Caveat 
Emptor' a horse — picked out as deserving them. He 
rests in Colinton churchyard, 

" Where all that mighty heart is lying still," — 

his only child William Henry buried beside him. I the 
more readily pay this tribute to Dr. Belfrage, that I owe 
to him the best blessing of my professional and one of the 

best of my personal life — the being apprenticed to Mr. 



104= Ifocrac Subscctvae. 

Syme. This was his doing-. With that sense of the 
capacities and capabilities of other men, which was one 
of his gifts, he predicted the career of this remarkable 
man. He used to say, " Give him life, let him live, and I 
know what and where he will be thirty years hence ;" and 
this long before our greatest clinical teacher and wisest 
surgeon, had made the public and the profession feel and 
acknowledge the full weight of his worth. 

Another life-long and ever-strengthening friendship 
was that with James Henderson, D.D., Galashiels, who 
survived my father only a few days. This remarkable 
man, and exquisite preacher, whose intellect and worth 
had for nearly fifty years glowed with a pure, steady, and 
ever-growing warmth and lustre in his own region, died 
during the night, and probably asleep, when, like Moses, 
no one but his Maker was with him. He had for years 
laboured under that form of disease of the heart called 
angina pectoris (Dr. Arnold's disease), and for more 
than twenty years lived as it were on the edge of instant 
death ; but during his later years his health had im- 
proved, though he had always to " walk softly," like one 
whose next step might be into eternity. This bodily 
sense of peril gave to his noble and leonine face a look of 
suffering and of seriousness, and of what, in his case, we 
may truly call godly fear, which all must remember. He 
used to say he carried his grave beside him. He came 
in to my father's funeral, and took part in the services. 
He was much affected, and we fear the long walk through 
the city to the burial-place was too much for him ; he re- 
turned home, preached a sermon on his old and dear 
friend's death of surpassing beauty. The text was, 
" For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." It 
was, as it were, his own funeral sermon too, and there 
was, besides its fervour, depth, and heavenly-minded- 
ness, a something in it that made his old hearers afraid 
— as if it were to be the last crush of the grapes. In 
a letter to me soon after the funeral, he said : — " His 
removal is another memento to me that my own course is 
drawing near to its end. Nearly all of my contemporaries 
and of the friends of my youth are now gone before me. 
Well! 1 may say, in the words of your friend Vaughan — 



Xettcr to 5obn Cairns, £>.2>. 105 

" They are all gone to that world of light, 
And I alone sit lingering here ; 
Their very memory's calm and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth cheer." 

The evening before his death he was slightly unwell, 
and next morning-, not coming down as usual, was called, 
but did not answer ; and on going in, was found in the 
posture of sleep, quite dead : at some unknown hour of 
the night abiit ad plures — he had gone over to the 
majority, and joined the famous nations of the dead. Tic 
vero felix non vitce tantum e/aritaie, sed etiam oppor- 
t unit ate mortis ! dying with his lamp burning, his pass- 
port made out for his journey ; death an instant act, not 
a prolonged process of months, as with his friend. 

I have called Dr. Henderson a remarkable man, and an 
exquisite preacher ; he was both, in the strict senses of 
the words. He had the largest brain I ever saw or meas- 
ured. His hat had to be made for him ; and his head 
was great in the nobler regions ; the anterior and upper 
were full, indeed immense. If the base of his brain and 
his physical organization, especially his circulating sys- 
tem, had been in proportion, he would have been a man 
of formidable power, but his defective throb of the heart, 
and a certain lentitude of temperament, made this impos- 
sible ; and his enormous organ of thought and feeling, 
being thus shut from the outlet of active energy, became 
intensely meditative, more this than even reflective. The 
consequence was, in all his thoughts an exquisiteness and 
finish, a crystalline lustre, purity, and concentration ; but 
it was the exquisiteness of a great nature. If the first 
edge was fine, it was the sharp end of a wedge, the broad 
end of which you never reached, but might infer. This 
gave momentum to everything he said. He was in the 
true sense what Chalmers used to call " a man of wecht." 
His mind acted by its sheer absolute power ; it seldom 
made an effort ; it was the hydraulic pressure, harmless, 
manageable, but irresistible ; not the perilous compression 
of steam. Therefore it was that he was untroubled and 
calm, though rich ; clear, though deep ; though gentle, 
never dull ; " strong without rage, without o'erflowing 
full." Indeed this element of water furnishes the best 



106 Ihorac Subsecfvae. 

figure of his mind and its expression. His language was 
like the stream of his own Tweed ; it was a translucent 
medium, only it brightened everything seen through it, as 
wetting a pebble brings out its lines and colour. That 
lovely, and by him much-loved river, was curiously like 
him, or he like it, gentle, great, strong, with a prevailing 
mild seriousness all along its course, but clear and quiet ; 
sometimes, as at old Melrose, turning upon itself, reflect- 
ing, losing itself in beauty, and careless to go, deep and 
inscrutable, but stealing away cheerily down to Lessud- 
den, all the clearer of its rest ; and then again at the 
Trows, showing unmistakably its power in removing 
obstructions and taking its own way, and chafing nobly 
with the rocks, sometimes, too, like him, its silver stream 
rising into sudden flood, and rolling irresistibly on its 
way.* 

We question if as many carefully thought and worded, 
and rapidly and by no means laboriously written sermons, 
were composed anywhere else in Britain during his fifty 
years — every Sunday two new ones ; the composition 
faultless — such as Cicero or Addison would have made 
them, had they been U.P. ministers ; only there was 
always in them more soul than body, more of the spirit 
than of the letter. What a contrast to the much turbid, 
hot, hasty, perilous stuff of our day and preachers ! The 
original power and size of Dr. Henderson's mind, his 
roominess for all thoughts, and his still reserve, his leni- 
tude, made, as we have said, his expressions clear and 
quiet, to a degree that a coarse and careless man, spoiled 
by the violence and noise of other pulpit men, might 

*Such an occasional paroxysm of eloquence is thus described by Dr. 
Cairns: — " At certain irregular intervals, when the loftier themes of the 
gospel ministry were to be handled, his manner underwent a transforma- 
tion which was startling, and even electrical. He became rapt and 
excited as with new inspiration ; his utterance grew thick and rapid ; his 
voice trembled and faltered with emotion ; his eye gleamed with a wild 
unearthly lustre, in which his countenance shared ; and his whole frame 
heaved to and fro, as if each glowing thought and vivid figure that fol- 
lowed in quick succession were only a fragment of some greater revelation 
which he panted to overtake. The writer of this notice has witnessed 
nothing similar in any preacher, and numbers the effects of a passage 
which he once heard upon the scenes and exercises of the heavenly world 
among his most thrilling recollections of sacred oratory." — Memoir pre- 
fixed to posthumous volume of Discourses. 



Xcttcr to 5obn Cairns, 2>.D. 107 

think insipid. But let him go over the words slowly, and 
he would not say this again ; and let him see and feel the 
solemnizing-, commanding power of that large, square, 
leonine countenance, the broad massive frame, as of a 
compressed Hercules, and the living, pure, melodious 
voice, powerful, but not by reason of loudness, dropping 
out from his compressed lips the words of truth, and he 
would not say this again. His voice had a singular 
pathos in it; and those who remember his often-called- 
for sermon on the " Bright and the Morning Star," can 
reproduce in their mind its tones and refrain. The 
thoughts of such men — so rare, so apt to be unvisited 
and unvalued — often bring into my mind a spring of pure 
water I once saw near the top of Cairngorm ; always the 
same, cool in summer, keeping its few plants alive and 
happy with its warm breath in winter, floods and droughts 
never making its pulse change ; and all this because it 
came from the interior heights, and was distilled by 
nature's own cunning, and had taken its time — was indeed 
a well of living water. And with Dr. Henderson this of 
the mountain holds curiously ; he was retired, but not 
concealed ; and he was of the primary formation, he had 
no organic remains of other men in him ; he liked and 
fed on ail manner of literature ; knew poetry well ; but 
it was all outside of him ; his thoughts were essentially 
his own. 

He was peculiarly a preacher for preachers, as Spenser 
is a poet for poets. They felt he was a master. He 
published, after the entreaties of years, a volume of ser- 
mons which has long been out of print, and which he 
would never prepare for a second edition ; he had much 
too little of the love of fame, and though not destitute of 
self-reliance and self-value, and resolved and unchange- 
able to obstinacy, he was not in the least degree vain. 

But you will think I am writing more about my father's 
friends and myself than about him. In a certain sense 
we may know a man by his friends ; a man chooses his 
friends from harmony, not from sameness, just as we 
would rather sing in parts than all sing the air. One 
man fits into the mind of another not by meeting his 
points, but by dovetailing ; each finds in the other what 



108 Iborae Subsecivae. 

he in a double sense wants. This was true of my 
father's friends. Dr. Balmer was like him in much more 
than perhaps any, — in love of books and lonely study, in 
his general views of divine truth, and in their metaphysical 
and literary likings, but they differed deeply. Dr. Balmer 
was serene and just rather than subtle and profound ; his 
was the still, translucent stream,— my father's the rapid, 
and it might be deep ; on the one you could safely sail, 
the other hurried you on, and yet never were two men, 
during a long life of intimate intercourse, more cordial. 

I must close the list ; one only and the best — the most 
endeared of them all — Dr. Heugh. He was, in mental 
constitution and temper, perhaps more unlike my father 
than any of the others I have mentioned. His was essen- 
tially a practical understanding ; he was a man of action, 
a man for men more than for man, the curious reverse in 
this of my father. He delighted in public life, had a 
native turn for affairs, for all that society needs and de- 
mands, — clear-headed, ready, intrepid, adroit ; with a fine 
temper, but keen and honest, with an argument and a 
question and a joke for every one ; not disputatious, but 
delighting in a brisk argument, fonder of wrestling than 
of fencing, but ready for action, not much of a long shot, 
always keeping his eye on the immediate, the possible, the 
attainable, but in ail this guided by genuine principle, 
and the finest honour and exactest truth. He excelled in 
the conduct of public business, saw his way clear, made 
other men see theirs, was for ever getting the Synod out 
of difficulties and confusions, by some clear, tidy, con- 
clusive " motion ;" and then his speaking, so easy and 
bright and pithy, manly and gentlemanly, grave when it 
should be, never when it should not — mobile, fearless, 
rapid, brilliant as Saladin — his silent, pensive, impassioned 
and emphatic friend was more like the lion-hearted 
Richard, with his heavy mace ; he might miss, but let 
him hit, and there needed no repetition. Each admired 
the other ; indeed Dr. Heugh's love of my father was 
quite romantic ; and though they were opposed on several 
great public questions, such as the Apocrypha controversy, 
the atonement question at its commencement ; and though 
they were both of them too keen and too honest to mince 



Xetter to John Catrne, 2>.E>. too 

matters or be mealy-mouthed, they never misunderstood 
each other, never had a shadow of estrangement, so that 

our Paul and Barnabas, though their contentions were 
sometimes sharp enough, never " departed asunder ;" 
indeed they loved each other the longer the more. 

Take him all in all, as a friend, as a gentleman, as a 
Christian, as a citizen, I never knew a man so thoroughly 
delightful as Dr. Heugh. Others had more of this or 
more of that, but there was a symmetry, a compactness, 
a sweetness, a true delightfulness about him I can re- 
member in no one else. No man with so much tempta- 
tion to be heady and high-minded, sarcastic, and man- 
aging, from his overflowing wit and talent, was ever more 
natural, more honest, or more considerate, indeed tender- 
hearted. He was full of animal spirits and of fun, and 
one of the best wits and jokers I ever knew ; and such an 
asker of questions, of posers ! We children had a pleas- 
ing dread of that nimble, sharp, exact man, who made us 
explain and name everything. Of Scotch stories he had 
as many original ones as would make a second volume 
for Dean Ramsay. How well I remember the very 
corner of the room in Biggar manse, forty years ago, 
when from him I got the first shock and relish of humour; 
became conscious of mental tickling ; of a word being 
made to carry double and being all the lighter of it. It 
is an old story now, but it was new then : a big, perspir- 
ing countryman rushed into the Black Bull coach-office, 
and holding the door, shouted, " Are yir insides a' oot ?" 
This was my first tasting of the flavour of a joke. 

Had Dr. Heugh, instead of being the admirable clergy- 
man he was devoted himself to public civil life, and gone 
into Parliament, he would have taken a high place as a 
debater, a practical statesman and patriot. He had 
many of the best qualities of Canning, and our own 
Premier, with purer and higher qualities than either. 
There is no one our church should be more proud of than 
of this beloved and excellent man, the holiness and 
humility, the jealous, godly fear in whose nature was not 
known fully even to his friends, till he was gone, when 
his private daily self-searchings and prostrations before 
his Master and judge were for the first time made known, 



no Iborae Subsecivac. 

There are few characters, both sides of which are so 
unsullied, so pure, and without reproach. 

I am back at Biggar at the old sacramental times ; I 
see and hear my grandfather, or Mr. Home of Braehead, 
Mr. Leckie of Peebles, Mr. Harper of Lanark, as inveter- 
ate in argument as he was warm in heart, Mr. Comrie of 
Penicuik, with his keen, Voltaire-like face, and much of 
that unhappy and unique man's wit, and sense, and per- 
fection of expression, without his darker and baser 
qualities. I can hear their hearty talk, can see them 
coming and going between the meeting-house and the 
Tent on the side of the burn, and then the Monday 
dinner, and the cheerful talk, and the many clerical 
stories and pleasantries, and their going home on their 
hardy little horses, Mr. Comrie leaving his curl-papers 
till the next solemnity, and leaving also some joke of his 
own, clear and compact as a diamond, and as cutting. 

I am in Rose Street on the monthly lecture, the church 
crammed, passages and pulpit stairs. Exact to a minute, 
James Chalmers — the old soldier and beadle, slim, meek, 
but incorruptible by proffered half-crowns from ladies 
who thus tried to get in before the doors opened — 
appears, and all the people in that long pew rise up, and 
he, followed by his minister, erect and engrossed, walks 
in along the seat, and they struggle up to the pulpit. We 
all know what he is to speak of ; he looks troubled even 
to distress ; — it is the matter of Uriah the Hittite. He 
gives out the opening verses of the 51st Psalm, and offer- 
ing up a short and abrupt prayer, which every one takes 
to himself, announces his miserable and dreadful subject, 
fencing it, as it were, in a low penetrating voice, daring 
any one of us to think an evil thought ; there was little 
need at that time of the warning, — he infused his own 
intense, pure spirit, into us all. 

He then told the story without note or comment, only 
personating each actor in the tragedy with extraordinary 
effect, above all, the manly, loyal, simple-hearted soldier. 
I can recall the shudder of that multitude as of one man 
when he read, " And it came to pass in the morning, that 
David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of 
Uriah. And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah 



Xctter to John Gatrns, E>.2). ill 

in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from 
him, that he may be smitten and die." And then, after a 
long and utter silence, his exclaiming, " Is this the man 
according to God's own heart ? Yes, it is ; we must 
believe that both are true." Then came Nathan. " There 
were two men in one city ; the one rich, and the other 
poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and 
herds ; but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe 
lamb" — and all that exquisite, that divine fable — ending, 
like a thunderckip, with, " Thou art the man !" Then 
came the retribution, so awfully exact and thorough, — the 
misery of the child's death ; that brief tragedy of the 
brother and sister, more terrible than anything in 
^schylus, in Dante, or in Ford ; then the rebellion of 
Absalom, with its hideous dishonour, and his death, and 
the king covering his face, and crying in a loud voice, 
" O my son Absalom ! O Absalom ! my son ! my son !" 
— and David's psalm, " Have mercy upon me, O God, 
according to thy loving-kindness ; according unto the 
multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgres- 
sions," — then closing with, " Yes ; ' when lust hath con- 
ceived, it bringeth forth sin : and sin, when it is finished, 
bringeth forth death. Do not err,' do not stray, do not 
transgress (///) -/.avao&E)* ' my beloved brethren,' it is first 
4 earthly, then sensual, then devilish ;' " he shut the book, 
and sent us all away terrified, shaken, and humbled, like 
himself. 

I would fain say a few words on my father's last 
illness, or rather on what led to it, and I wish you and 
others in the ministry would take to heart, as matter of 
immediate religious duty, much of what I am going to 
say. My father w r as a seven months' child, and lay, I 
believe, for a fortnight in black wool, undressed, doing 
little but breathe and sleep, not capable of being fed. He 
continued all his life slight in make, and not robust in 
health, though lively, and capable of great single efforts. 
His attendance upon his mother must have saddened his 
body as well as his mind, and made him willing and able 
to endure, in spite of his keen and ardent spirit, the seden- 

* James i. 15, 16. It iz plain that "do not err" should have been in 
verse 15th. 



112 Iborae Subsecwae. 

tary life he in the main led. He was always a very small 
eater, and nice in his tastes, easily put off from his food 
by any notion. He therefore started on the full work of 
life with a finer and more delicate mechanism than a man's 
ought to be, indeed, in these respects he was much liker 
a woman; and being very soon " placed," he had little 
travelling, and little of that tossing about the world, which, 
in the transition from youth to manhood, hardens the frame 
as well as supples it. Though delicate, he was almost 
never ill. I do not remember, till near the close of his 
life, his ever being in bed a day. 

From his nervous system, and his brain predominating 
steadily over the rest of his body, he was habitually 
excessive in his professional work. As to quantity, as to 
quality, as to manner and expression, he flung away his 
life without stint every Sabbathday, his sermons being 
laboriously prepared, loudly mandated, and at great 
expense of body and mind, and then delivered with the 
utmost vehemence and rapidity. He was quite uncon- 
scious of the state he worked himself into, and of the loud, 
piercing voice in which he often spoke. This I frequently 
warned him about, as being, I knew, injurious to himself, 
and often painful to his hearers, and his answer always 
was, that he was utterly unaware of it ; and thus it con- 
tinued to the close, and very sad it was to me who knew 
the peril, and saw the coming end, to listen to his noble, 
rich, persuasive, imperative appeals, and to know that the 
surplus of power, if retained, would, by God's blessing, 
retain him, while the effect on his people would, I am sure, 
not have lost, but in some respects have gained, for 
much of the discourse which was shouted and sometimes 
screamed at the full pitch of his keen voice, was of a 
kind to be better rendered in his deep, quiet, settled 
tones. This, and the great length of his public services, 
I knew he himself felt, when too late, had injured him, 
and many a smile he had at my proposal to have a secret 
sub-congregational string from him to me in the back 
seat, to be authoritatively twitched when I knew he had 
done enough ; but this string was never pulled, even in 
his mind. 

He went on in his expensive life, sleeping very little, 



Xetter to Jobn Cairns, D.2>. 113 

and always lightly, eating little, never walking except of 
necessity ; little in company, when he would have eaten 
more, and been, by the power of social relish, made like- 
lier to get the full good out of his food ; never diverting 
his mind by any change but that of one book or subject 
for another; and every time that any strong affliction came 
on him, as when made twice a widower, or at his daugh- 
ter's death, or from such an outrage upon his entire nature 
and feelings as the Libel, then his delicate machinery was 
shaken and damaged, not merely by the first shock, but 
even more by that unrelenting self-command by which he 
terrified his body into instant submission. Thus it was, 
and thus it ever must be, if the laws of our bodily consti- 
tution, laid down by Him who knows our frame, and from 
whom our substance is not hid, are set at nought, know- 
ingly or not — if knowingly, the act is so much the more 
spiritually bad — but if not, it is still punished with the 
same unerring nicety, the same commensurate meting out 
of the penalty, and paying " in full tale," as makes the sun 
to know his time, and splits an erring planet into frag- 
ments, driving it into space " with hideous ruin and com- 
bustion." It is a pitiful and a sad thing to say, but if my 
father had not been a prodigal in a true but very different 
meaning, if he had not spent his substance, the portion of 
goods that fell to him, the capital of life given him by 
God, in what we must believe to have been needless and 
therefore preventable excess of effort, we might have had 
him still with us, shining more and more, and he and they 
who were with him would have been spared those two 
years of the valley of the shadow, with its sharp and steady 
pain, its fallings away of life, its longing for the grave, its 
sleepless nights and days of weariness and languor, the 
full expression of which you will find nowhere but in the 
Psalms and in Job. 

I have said that though delicate he was never ill : this 
was all the worse for him, for, odd as it may seem, many 
a man's life is lengthened by a sharp illness ; and this in 
several ways. In the first place, he is laid up, out of the 
reach of all external mischief and exertion, he is like a 
ship put in dock for repairs ; time is gained. A brisk 
fever clarifies the entire man, if it is beaten and does not 



114 Iborae Subsecivae. 

beat ; it is like cleaning a chimney by setting it on fire ; it is 
perilous but thorough. Then the effort to throw off the dis- 
ease often quickens and purifies and corroborates the central 
powers of life ; the flame burns more clearly ; there is a 
cleanness, so to speak, about all the wheels of life. More- 
over, it is a warning, and makes a man meditate on his 
bed, and resolve to pull up ; and it warns his friends, and 
likewise, if he is a clergyman, his people, who if their min- 
ister is always with them, never once think he can be ever 
anything but as able as he is. 

Such a pause, such a breathing-time my father never 
got during that part of his life and labours when it would 
have availed most, and he was an old man in years, before 
he was a regular patient of any doctor. He was during 
life subject to sudden headaches, affecting his memory 
and eyesight, and even his speech ; these attacks were, 
according to the thoughtless phrase of the day, called 
bilious ; that is, he was sick, and was relieved by a blue 
pill and smart medicine. Their true seat was in the 
brain ; the liver suffered because the brain was ill, and 
sent no nervous energy to it, or poisoned what it did send. 
The sharp racking pain in the forehead was the cry of 
suffering from the anterior lobes, driven by their master 
to .distraction, and turning on him wild with weakness and 
fear and anger. It was well they did cry out ; in some brains 
(large ones) they would have gone on dumb to sudden 
and utter ruin, as in apoplexy or palsy ; but he did not 
know, and no one told him their true meaning, and he set 
about seeking for the outward cause in some article of food, 
in some recent and quite inadequate cause. 

He used, with a sort of odd shame and distress, to ask 
me why it was that he was subjected to so much suffering 
from what he called the lower and ignoble regions of his 
body ; and I used to explain to him that he had made them 
suffer by long years of neglect, and that they were now 
having their revenge, and in their own way. I have often 
found, that the more the nervous centres are employed in 
those offices of thought and feeling the most removed from 
material objects, — the more the nervous energy of the en- 
tire nature is concentrated, engrossed, and used up in such 
offices, — so much the more, and therefore, are those organs 



Xetter to $obn Cairns, 2>.H>. lis 

of the body which preside over that organic life, common 
to ourselves and the lowest worm, defrauded of their 
necessary nervous food, — and being in the organic and 
not in the animal department, and having no voice to tell 
their wants or wrongs, till they wake up and annoy their 
neighbours who have a voice, that is, who are sensitive to 
pain, they may have been long ill before they come into 
the sphere of consciousness. This is the true reason — 
along with want of purity and change of air, want of exer- 
cise, * want of shifting the work of the body — why clergy- 
men, men of letters, and all men of intense mental appli- 
cation, are so liable to be affected with indigestion, con- 
stipation, lumbago, and lowness of spirits, melancholia — 
black bile. The brain may not give way for long, because 
for a time the law of exercise strengthens it ; it is fed high, 
gets the best of everything, of blood and nervous pabulum, 
and then men have a joy in the victorious work of their 
brain, and it has a joy of its own, too, which deludes and 
misleads. 

All this happened to my father. He had no formal dis- 
ease when he died — no structural change ; his sleep and 
his digestion would have been quite sufficient for life even 
up to the last ; the mechanism was entire, but the motive 
power was gone — it was expended. The silver cord was 
not so much loosed as relaxed. The golden bowl, the 
pitcher at the fountain, the wheel at the cistern, were not 
so much broken as emptied and stayed. The clock had 
run down before its time, and there was no one but He 
who first wound it up and set it who could wind it up 
again ; and this He does not do, because it is His law — an 
express injunction from Him — that, having measured out to 
His creatures each his measure of life, and left him to the 
freedom of his own will and the regulation of his reason, 
He also leaves him to reap as he sows. 

Thus it was that my father's illness was not so much a 
disease as a long death ; life ebbing away, consciousness 
left entire, the certain issue never out of sight. This, to a 

* " The youth Story was in all respects healthy, and even robust ; he 
died of overwork, or rather, as I understand, of a two years' almost total 
want of exercise, which it was impossible to induce him to take." — 
Arnold's Report to the Committee of Council on Education, i860. 



116 Iborae Subeecfvae. 

man of my father's organization — with a keen relish for 
life, and its highest pleasures and energies, sensitive to 
impatience, and then over-sensitive of his own impatience ; 
cut to the heart with the long watching and suffering of those 
he loved, who, after all, could do so little for him ; with a 
nervous system easily sunk, and by its strong play upon his 
mind darkening and saddening his most central beliefs, 
shaking his most solid principles, tearing and terrifying 
his tenderest affections; his mind free and clear, ready for 
action if it had the power, eager to be in its place in the 
work of the world and of its Master, to have to spend two 
long years in this ever-descending road — here was a com- 
bination of positive and negative suffering not to be 
thought of even now, when it is all sunk under that " far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 

He often spoke to me freely about his health, went into 
it with the fearlessness, exactness, and persistency of his 
nature ; and I never witnessed, or hope to witness, any- 
thing more affecting than when, after it had been dawning 
upon him, he apprehended the true secret of his death. 
He was deeply humbled, felt that he had done wrong to 
himself, to his people, to us all, to his faithful and long- 
suffering Master ; and he often said, with a dying energy 
lighting up his eye, and nerving his voice and gesture, 
that if it pleased God to let him again speak in his old 
place, he would not only proclaim again, and, he hoped, 
more simply and more fully, the everlasting gospel to lost 
man, but proclaim also the gospel of God to the body, the 
religious and Christian duty and privilege of living" in 
obedience to the divine laws of health. He was delighted 
when I read to him, and turned to this purpose that 
wonderful passage of St. Paul — " For the body is not one 
member, but many. If the whole body were an eye, 
where were the hearing ? if the whole were hearing, where 
were the smelling? But now hath God set the members 
every one of them in the body, as *t hath pleased him. 
And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of 
thee ; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of 
you. Nay, much more those members of the body which 
seem to be more feeble, are necessary ;" summing it all 
up in words with life and death in them — " That there 



Xetter to $obn Cairns, 5). 2). 117 

should be no schism in the body ; but that the members 
should have the same care one for another. And whether 
one member surfer, all the members suffer with it ; or one 
member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." 

The lesson from all this is, Attend to your bodies, study 
their structure, functions, and laws. This does not at all 
mean that you need be an anatomist, or go deep into 
physiology, or the doctrines of prevention and cure. Nol 
only has each organism a resident doctor, placed there by 
Him who can thus heal all our diseases ; but this doctor, 
if watched and waited on, informs any man or woman of 
ordinary sense what things to do, and what things not to 
do. And I would have you, who, I fear, not unfre- 
quently sin in the same way, and all our ardent, self- 
sacrificing young ministers, to reflect whether, after 
destroying themselves and dying young, they have lost or 
gained. It is said that God raises up others in our place. 
God gives you no title to say this. Men — such men as I 
have in my mind — are valuable to God in proportion to 
the time they are here. They are the older, the better, 
the riper and richer, and more enriching. Nothing will 
make up for this absolute loss of life. For there is some- 
thing which every man who is a good workman is gaining 
every year just because he is older, and this nothing can 
replace. Let a man remain on his ground, say a country 
parish, during half a century or more — let him be every 
year getting fuller and sweeter in the knowledge of God 
and man, jn utterance and in power — can the power of that 
man for good over all his time, and especially towards 
its close, be equalled by that of three or four young, and, 
it maybe admirable men, who have been succeeding each 
other's untimely death, during the same space of time ? 
It is against all spiritual, as well as all simple arithmetic, 
to say so. 

You have spoken of my father's prayers. They were 
of two kinds : the one, formal, careful, systematic, and 
almost stereotyped, remarkable for fulness and com- 
pression of thought : sometimes too manifestly the result 
of study, and sometimes not purely prayer, but more of 
the nature of a devotional and even argumentative address ; 
the other, as in the family, short, simple, and varied. He 



118 Iborae Subsecivae. 

used to tell of his master, Dr. Lawson, reproving - him, in 
his honest but fatherly way, as they were walking home 
from the Hall. My father had in his prayers the words, 
" that through death he might destroy him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil." The old man, leaning 
on his favourite pupil, said, " John, my man, you need not 
have said ' that is, the devil ';' you might have been sure 
that He knew whom you meant." My father, in theory, 
held that a mixture of formal, fixed prayer, in fact, a 
liturgy, along - with extempore prayer, was the right thing. 
As you observe, many of his passages in prayer, all who 
were in the habit of hearing him could anticipate, such as 
"the enlightening, enlivening, sanctifying, and comforting 
influences of the good Spirit," and many others. One in 
especial you must remember ; it was only used on very 
solemn occasions, and curiously unfolds his mental 
peculiarities ; it closed his prayer — " And now, unto 
Thee, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the one Jehovah 
and our God, we would — as is most meet — with the 
church on earth and the church in heaven, ascribe all 
honour and glory, dominion and majesty, as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. 
Amen." Nothing could be liker him than the interjection, 
" as is most meet." Sometimes his abrupt, short state- 
ments in the Synod were very striking. On one occasion, 
Mr. James Morison, having - stated his views as to prayer 
very strongly, denying that a sinner can pray, my father, 
turning to the moderator, said — " Sir, let a man feel him- 
self to be a sinner, and, for anything the universe of 
creatures can do for him, hopelessly lost, — let him feel 
this, sir, and let him get a glimpse of the Saviour, and all 
the eloquence and argument of Mr. Morison will not keep 
that man from crying out, ' God be merciful to me a 
sinner.' That, sir, is prayer — that is acceptable prayer." 
There must be, I fear, now and then an apparent dis- 
crepancy between you and me, especially as to the degree 
of mental depression which at times overshadowed my 
father's nature. You will understand this, and I hope our 
readers will make allowance for it. Some of it is owing 
to my constitutional tendency to overstate, and much of 
it to my having had perhaps more frequent, and even 



TLcttet to 5obn Cairns, H>.2>. no 

more private, insights into this part of his life. But such 
inconsistency as that I speak of — the co-existence of a 
clear, firm faith, a habitual sense of God and of his infi- 
nite mercy, the living a life of faith, as if it was in his 
organic and inner life, more than in his sensational and 
outward — is quite compatible with that tendency to dis- 
trust himself, that bodily darkness and mournfulness, 
which at times came over him. Any one who knows 
" what a piece of work is man ;" how composite, how 
varying, how inconsistent human nature is, that each of 
us is 

" Some twenty several men, all in an hour," 

— will not need to be told to expect, or how to harmonize, 
these differences of mood. You see this in that wonder- 
ful man, the apostle Paul, the true typical fulness, the 
humanness, so to speak, of whose nature comes out in 
such expressions of opposites as these — " By honour and 
dishonour, by evil report and good report : as deceivers 
and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known ; as dying, 
and behold we live ; as chastened, and not killed ; as sor- 
rowful, yet alway rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many- 
rich ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 

I cannot, and after your impressive and exact history of 
his last days, I need not say anything of the close of those 
long years of suffering, active and passive, and that slow 
ebbing of life ; the body, without help or hope, feeling its 
doom steadily though slowly drawing on ; the mind 
mourning for its suffering friend, companion, and servant, 
mourning also, sometimes, that it must be " unclothed," 
and take its flight all alone into the infinite unknown ; 
dying daily, not in the heat of fever, or in the insensibility 
or lethargy of paralytic disease, but having the mind calm 
and clear,, and the body conscious of its own decay, — 
dying, as it were, in cold blood. One thing I must add. 
That morning when you were obliged to leave, and when 
"cold obstruction's apathy" had already begun its reign — 
when he knew us, and that was all, and when he followed 
us with his dying and loving eyes, but could not speak — 
the end came ; and then, as through life, his will asserted 
itself supreme in death. With that love of order and 



120 Iborae Subsecivae. 

decency which was a law of his life, he deliberately com- 
posed himself, placing his body at rest, as if setting- his 
house in order before leaving it, and then closed his eyes 
and mouth, so that his last look — the loo*k his body car- 
ried to the grave and faced dissolution in— was that of 
sweet, dignified self-possession. 

I have made this letter much too long, and have said 
many things in it I never intended saying, and omitted 
much I had hoped to be able to say. But I must end. 
Yours ever affectionately, 

J. Brown. 



2>r. Cbatmcra* 121 



DR. CHALMERS. 



41 Fervet immensusque ruit." — Hor. 

" His memory long "will live alone 

In all our hearts, as mournful light 
That broods above the fallen sun, 
And dwells in heaven half the night." 

Tennyson. 

" He was net one man, he w,is a thousand /wk."— Sydney Smith. 

When, towards the close of some long summer day, 
we come suddenly, and, as we think, before his time, 
upon the broad sun, " sinking down in his tranquillity" 
into the unclouded west ; we cannot keep our eyes from 
the great spectacle ; — and when he is gone, the shadow 
of him haunts our sight with the spectre of his brightness, 
which is dark when our eyes are open ; luminous when 
they are shut : we see everywhere, — upon the spotless 
heaven, upon the distant mountains, upon the fields, and 
upon the road at our feet, — that dim, strange, changeful 
image ; and if our eyes shut, to recover themselves, we 
still find in them, like a dying flame, or like a gleam in a 
dark place, the unmistakable phantom of the mighty orb 
that has set, — and were we to sit down, as we have often 
done, and try to record by pencil or by pen, our impression 
of that supreme hour, still would IT be there. We must 
have patience with our eye, it will not let the impression 
go, — that spot on which the radiant disc was impressed, 
is insensible to all other outward things, for a time : its 
best relief is, to let the eye wander vaguely over earth 
and sky, and repose itself on the mild shadowy distance. 

So it is when a great and good and beloved man departs, 
sets — it may be suddenly — and to us who know not the 
times and the seasons, too soon. We gaze eagerly at his last 
hours, and when he is gone, never to rise again on our 



122 Iborae Subsecivae. 

sight, we see his image wherever we go, and in whatso- 
ever we are engaged, and if we try to record by words 
our wonder, our sorrow, and our affection, we cannot see 
to do it, for the " idea of his life" is for ever coming into 
our " study of imagination" — into all our thoughts, and 
we can do little else than let our mind, in a wise passive- 
ness, hush itself to rest. 

The sun returns — he knows his rising — 

" To-morrow he repairs his drooping head, 

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky ;" 

but man lieth down, and riseth not again till the heavens 
are no more. Never again will he whose " Meditations" 
are now before us, lift up the light of his countenance 
upon us. 

We need not say we look upon him as a great man, as 
a good man, as a beloved man — quis desiderio sit pudor 
ta??i cari capitis ? We cannot now go very curiously to 
work, to scrutinize the composition of his character, — we 
cannot take that large, free, genial nature to pieces, and 
weigh this and measure that, and sum up and pronounce ; 
we are too near as yet to him, and to his loss, he is too 
dear to us to be so handled. " His death," to use the 
pathetic words of Hartley Coleridge, " is a recent sorrow ; 
his image still lives in eyes that weep for him." The 
prevailing feeling is, — He is gone — " abiit ad plures — he 
has gone over to the majority, he has joined the famous 
nations of the dead." 

It is no small loss to the world, when one of its master 
spirits — one of its great lights — a king among the nations 
— leaves it. A sun is extinguished ; a great attractive, 
regulating power is withdrawn. For though it be a 
common, it is also a natural thought, to compare a great 
man to the sun ; it is in many respects significant. Like 
the sun, he rules his day, and he is " for a sign and for 
seasons, and for days and for years ;" he enlightens, 
quickens, attracts, and leads after him his host — his 
generation. 

To pursue our image. When the sun sets to us, he 
rises elsewhere — he goes on rejoicing, like a strong man, 



£>r. Cbatmers. 12a 

running his race. So does a great man : when he leaves 
us and our concerns — he rises elsewhere ; and we may 
reasonably suppose that one who has in this world played 
a great part in its greatest histories — who has through a 
long life been pre-eminent for promoting the good of men 
and the glory of God — will be looked upon with keen in- 
terest, when he joins the company of the immortals. 
They must have heard of his fame ; they may in their 
ways have seen and helped him already. 

Every one must have trembled when reading that pas- 
sage in Isaiah, in which Hell is described as moved to 
meet Lucifer at his coming : there is not in human lan- 
guage anything more sublime of conception, more exqui- 
site in expression ; it has on it the light of the terrible 
crystal. But may we not reverse the scene ? May we 
not imagine, when a great and good man — a son of the 
morning — enters on his rest, that Heaven would move 
itself to meet him at his coming ? that it would stir up 
its dead, even all the chief ones of the earth, and that the 
kings of the nations would arise each one from his throne 
to welcome their brother ? that those who saw him would 
" narrowly consider him," and say, " Is this he who moved 
nations, enlightened and bettered his fellows, and whom 
the great Taskmaster welcomes with ' Well done !' " 

We cannot help following him, whose loss we now 
mourn, into that region, and figuring to ourselves his 
great, childlike spirit, when that unspeakable scene bursts 
upon his view, when, as by some inward, instant sense, 
he is conscious of God — of the immediate presence of the 
All-seeing Unseen ; when he beholds " His honourable, 
true, and only Son," face to face, enshrined in that " glo- 
rious form, that light unsufferable, and that far-beaming 
blaze of Majesty," that brightness of His glory, that ex- 
press image of His person ; when he is admitted into the 
goodly fellowship of the apostles — the glorious company 
of the prophets — the noble army of martyrs — the general 
assembly of just men— and beholds with his loving eyes 
the myriads of " little ones," outnumbering their elders as 
the dust of the stars with which the galaxy is filled ex- 
ceeds in multitude the hosts of heaven. 

What a change ! death the gate of life— a second birth, 



124 Iborae Subsccivae, 

in the twinkling of an eye : this moment, weak, fearful, 
in the amazement of death ; the next, strong, joyful, — at 
rest, — all things new ! To adopt his own words : all his 
life, up to the last, " knocking at a door not yet opened, 
with an earnest indefinite longing, — his very soul breaking 
for the longing, — drinking of water and thirsting again" — 
and then — suddenly and at once — a door opened into 
heaven, and the Master heard saying, " Come in, and 
come up hither !" drinking of the river of life, clear as 
crystal, of which if a man drink he will never thirst, — 
being rilled with all the fulness of God ! 

Dr. Chalmers was a ruler among men : this we know 
historically ; this every man who came within his range 
felt at once. He was like Agamemnon, a native avai; 
avdpuv, and with all his homeliness of feature and deport- 
ment, and his perfect simplicity of expression, there was 
about him " that divinity that doth hedge a king." You 
felt a power, in him, and going from him, drawing you 
to him in spite of yourself. He was in this respect a 
solar man, he drew after him his own firmament of 
planets. They, like all free agents, had their centrifugal 
forces acting ever towards an independent, solitary course, 
but the centripetal also was there, and they moved with 
and around their imperial sun, — gracefully or not, will- 
ingly or not, as the case might be, but there was no 
breaking loose : they again, in their own spheres of power, 
might have their attendant moons, but all were bound to 
the great massive luminary in the midst. 

There is to us a continual mystery in this power of one 
man over another. We find it acting everywhere, with 
the simplicity, the ceaselessness, the energy of gravita- 
tion ; and we may be permitted to speak of this influence 
as obeying similar conditions ; it is proportioned to bulk 
— for we hold to the notion of a bigness in souls as well 
as bodies — one soul differing from another in quantity 
and momentum as well as in quality and force, and its in- 
tensity increases by nearness. There is much in what 
Jonathan Edwards says of one spiritual essence having 
more of being than another, and in Dr. Chalmers's ques- 
tion, " Is he a man of wecht ?" 



Br. Cbalmers. 125 

But when we meet a solar man, of ample nature — soul, 
body, and spirit ; when we find him from his earliest 
years moving- among- his fellows like a king, moving- them 
whether they will or not — this feeling of mystery is deep- 
ened ; and thoug-h we would not, like some men (who 
should know better), worship the creature and convert a 
hero into a god, we do feel more than in other cases the 
truth, that it is the inspiration of the Almighty which has 
given to that man understanding, and that all power, all 
energy, all light, come to him, from the First and the 
Last — the Living One. God comes to be regarded by us, 
in this instance, as He ought always to be, " the final 
centre of repose" — the source of all being, of all life — the 
Terminus ad quern and the Terminus a quo. And assur- 
edly, as in the firmament that simple law of gravitation 
reigns supreme — making it indeed a /cosmos — majestic, 
orderly, comely in its going— ruling, and binding not the 
less the fiery and nomadic comets, than the gentle, punc- 
tual moons — so certainly, and to us moral creatures to a 
degree transcendently more important, does the whole 
intelligent universe move around and move towards and 
in the Father of Lights. 

It would be well if the world would, among the many 
other uses it makes of its great men, make more of this, 
— that they are manifestors of God — revealers of His will 
— vessels of His omnipotence — and are among the very 
chiefest of His ways and works. 

As we have before said, there is a perpetual wonder in 
this power of one man over his fellows, especially when 
we meet with it in a great man. You see its operations 
constantly in history, and through it the Great Ruler has 
worked out many of His greatest and strangest acts. 
But however we may understand the accessory conditions 
by which the one man rules the many, and controls and 
fashions them to his purposes, and transforms them into 
his likeness — multiplying as it were himself — there 
remains at the bottom of it all a mystery — a reaction 
between body and soul that we cannot explain. Gener- 
ally, however, we find accompanying its manifestation, a 
capacious understanding — a strong will — an emotional 
nature, quick, powerful, urgent, undeniable, in perpetual 



126 Iborae Subsecivme. 

communication with the energetic will and the large 
resolute intellect— and a strong, hearty, capable body ; a 
countenance and person expressive of this combination — 
the mind finding its way at once and in full force to the 
face, to the gesture, to every act of the body. He must 
have what is called a " presence ;" not that he must be 
great in size, beautiful, or strong ; but he must be expres- 
sive and impressive — his outward man must communicate 
to the beholder at once and without fail, something of 
indwelling power, and he must be and act as one. You 
may in your mind analyse him into his several parts ; but 
practically he acts in everything with his whole soul and 
his whole self ; whatsoever his hand finds to do, he does 
it with his might. Luther, Moses, David, Mahomet, 
Cromwell — all verified these conditions. 

And so did Dr. Chalmers. There was something 
about his whole air and manner, that disposed you at 
the very first to make way where he went — he held you 
before you were aware. That this depended fully as 
much upon the activity and the quantity — if we may so 
express ourselves— of his affections, upon that combined 
action of mind and body which we call temperament, 
and upon a straightforward, urgent will, as upon what is 
called the pure intellect, will be generally allowed ; but 
with all this, he could not have been and done, what he 
was and did, had he not had an understanding, in vigour 
and in capacity, worthy of its great and ardent compan- 
ions. It was large and free, mobile, and intense, rather 
than penetrative, judicial, clear, or fine, — so that in one 
sense he was more a man to make others act than tJiink ; 
but his own actings had always their origin in some fixed, 
central, inevitable proposition, as he would call it, and he 
began his onset with stating plainly, and with lucid calm- 
ness, what he held to be a great seminal truth ; from this 
he passed at once, not into exposition, but into illustra- 
tion and enforcement — into, if we may make a word 
overwhelming insistance. Something was to be done,' 
rather than explained. 

There was no separating his thoughts and expressions 
from his person, and looks, and voice. How perfectly 
we can at this moment recall him ! Thundering, flaming, 



2>r. Cbalmers. 127 

lightening in the pulpit ; teaching, indoctrinating-, draw- 
ing after him his students in his lecture-room ; sitting 
among other public men, the most unconscious, the most 
king-like of them all, with that broad leonine counte- 
nance, that beaming, liberal smile ; or on the way out to 
his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his throat 
muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards in an 
arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort of 
companion and playmate, with which, doubtless, he 
demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stupidi- 
ties in men and things, in Church and State. His great 
look, large chest, large head, his amplitude every way ; 
his broad, simple, childlike, in-turned feet ; his short, 
hurried, impatient step ; his erect, royal air ; his look of 
general good-will ; his kindling up into a warm but 
vague benignity when one he did not recognise spoke to 
him ; the addition, for it was not a change, of keen 
speciality to his hearty recognition ; the twinkle of his 
eyes; the immediately saying something very personal to 
set all to rights, and then sending you off with some 
thought, some feeling, some remembrance, making your 
heart burn within you ; his voice indescribable ; his eye 
— that most peculiar feature — not vacant, but asleep — 
innocent, mild, and large; and his soul, its great inhab- 
itant, not always at his window ; but then, when he did 
awake, how close to you was that burning vehement 
soul ! how it penetrated and overcame you ! how mild, 
and affectionate, and genial its expression at his own 
fireside ! 

Of his portraits worth mentioning, there are Watson 
Gordon's, Ducan's — the Calotypes of Mr. Hill — Kenneth 
M'Leay's miniatures — the Daguerreotype, and Steell's 
bust. These are all good, and all give bits of him, some 
nearly the whole, but not one of them that rt dep/uov, that 
fiery piwiich — that inspired look — that " diviner mind" 
— poco piii, or little more. Watson Gordon's is too much 
of the mere clergvman— is a pleasant likeness, and has 
the shape of his mouth, and the setting of his feet very 
good. Duncan's is a work of genius, and is the giant 
looking up, awakening, but not awakened — it is a very fine 
picture, Mr. Hill's Calotypes we like better than all the 



128 Iborae Subeectvae. 

rest ; because what in them is true, is absolutely so, and 
they have some delicate renderings which are all but 
beyond the power of any human artist ; for though man's 
art is mighty, nature's is mightier. The one of the Doctor 
sitting with his grandson " Tommy," is to us the best ; 
we have the true grandeur of his form — his bulk. M'Leay's 
is admirable — spirited — and has that look of shrewdness 
and vivacity and immediateness which he had when he 
was observing and speaking keenly ; it is, moreover, a fine, 
manly bit of art. M'Leay is the Raeburn of miniature 
painters — he does a great deal with little. The Daguerreo- 
type is, in its own way, excellent ; it gives the externality 
of the man to perfection, but it is Dr. Chalmers at a stand- 
still — his mind and feelings " pulled up" for the second 
that it was taken. Steell's is a noble bust — has a stern 
heroic expression and pathetic beauty about it, and from 
wanting colour and shadow and the eyes, it relies upon a 
certain simplicity and grandeur ; — in this it completely 
succeeds — the mouth is handled with extraordinary 
subtlety and sweetness, and the hair hangs over that 
huge brow like a glorious cloud. We think this head of 
Dr. Chalmers the artist's greatest bust. 

In reference to the assertion we have made as to bulk 
forming one primary element of a powerful mind, Dr. 
Chalmers used to say, when a man of activity and public 
mark was mentioned, "Has he wechtf he has prompti- 
tude — has he power? he has power — has he promptitude ? 
and, moreover, has he a discerning spirit ?" 

These are great practical, universal truths. How few- 
even of our greatest men have had all these three faculties 
large — fine, sound, and in " perfect diapason." Your men 
of promptitude, without power or judgment, are common 
and are useful. But they are apt to run wild, to get need- 
lessly brisk, unpleasantly incessant. A weasel is good or 
bad as the case may be,; — good against vermin — bad to 
meddle with ; — but inspired weasels, weasels on amission, 
are terrible indeed, mischievous and fell, and swiftness 
making up for want of momentum by inveteracy ; " fierce 
as wild bulls, untamable as flies." Of such men we have 
now-a-days too many. Men are too much in the way of 
supposing that doing is being ; that theology and excogi- 



2>r. Cbalmcrs. 129 

tation, and fierce dogmatic assertion of what they consider 

truth, is godliness ; that obedience is merely an occasional 
great act, and not a series of acts, issuing from a state, 
like the stream of water from its well. 

" Action is transitory — a step — a blow, 

The motion of a muscle — this way or that ; 

'Tisdone — and in the after vacancy, 

We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed. 

Suffering" {obedience, or being as opposed to doing) — • 
" Suffering is permanent, — 

And has the nature of infinity.' 1 

Dr. Chalmers was a man of genius — he had his own 
way of thinking, and saying, and doing, and looking 
everything. Men have vexed themselves in vain to define 
what genius is ; like every ultimate term we may describe 
it by giving its effects, we can hardly succeed in reaching 
its essence. Fortunately, though we know not what are 
its elements, we know it when we meet it ; and in him, 
in every movement of his mind, in every gesture, we had 
its unmistakable tokens. Two of the ordinary accompa- 
niments of genius — Enthusiasm and Simplicity — he had 
in rare measure. 

He was an enthusiast in its true and good sense ; he 
was " entheat," as if full of God, as the old poets called 
it. It was this ardour, this superabounding life, this im- 
mediateness of thought and action, idea and emotion, 
setting the whole man agoing at once — that gave a pow- 
er and a charm to everything he did. To adopt the old 
division of the Hebrew Doctors, as given by Xathanael 
Culverwel, in his " Light of Nature :" In man we have 
— 1st, irvevfia faoiroiovv, the sensitive soul, that which lies 
nearest the body — the very blossom and flower of life ; id, 
rdvvovv, animamrationis, sparklingand glittering with in- 
tellectuals, crowned with light ; and 3^/, rbv livi/or, impetum 
animi, motum mentis, the vigour and energy of the soul 
— its temper- -the mover of the other two — the first be- 
ing, as they said, resident in hepate — the second in cere- 
bro — the third in corde, where it presides over the issues 
of life, commands the circulation, and animates and sets 
the blood a-moving. The first and second are informa- 
tive, explicative, they " take in and do'' — the other " gives 



130 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

out." Now in Dr. Chalmers, the great ingredient was 
the 6 -&v/j,ug as indicating vis animce ct vita, — and in 
close fellowship with it, and ready for its service, was a 
large, capacious 6 vovg, and an energetic, sensuous, rapid 
to Trvevfia. Hence his energy, his contagious enthusiasm 
— this it was which gave the peculiar character to his re- 
ligion, to his politics, to his personnel ; everything he did 
was done heartily — if he desired heavenly blessings, he 
" panted" for them — " his soul broke for the longing." 
To give again the words of the spiritual and subtle Cul- 
verwel, " Religion (and indeed everything else) was no 
matter of indifferency to him. It was dsp/uov rt irpdy/ua, a 
certain fiery thing, as Aristotle calls love ; it required and 
it got, the very flower and vigour of the spirit — the 
strength and sinews of the soul — the prime and top of 
the affections — this is that grace, that panting grace — 
we know the name of it and that's all — 'tis called zeal — a 
flaming edge of the affection — the ruddy complexion of 
the soul." Closely connected with this temperament, and 
with a certain keen sensation of truth, rather than a per- 
ception of it, if we may so express ourselves, an intense 
consciousness of objective reality, — was his simple ani- 
mating faith. He had faith in God — faith in human na- 
ture — faith, if we may say so, in his own instincts — in 
his ideas of men and things — in himself ; and the result 
was, that unhesitating bearing up and steering right on- 
ward — " never bating one jot of heart or hope" so char- 
acteristic of him. He had " the substance of things hoped 
for." He had " the evidence of things not seen." 

By his simplicity we do not mean the simplicity of the 
head — of that he had none ; he was eminently shrewd 
and knowing — more so than many thought ; but we refer 
to that quality of the heart and of the life, expressed by 
the words, " in simplicity a child." In his own words, 
from his Daily Readings, — 

" When a child is filled with any strong emotion by a surprising event 
or intelligence, it runs to discharge it on others, impatient of their sym- 
pathy ; and it marks, I fancy, the simplicity and greater naturalness of 
this period (Jacob's), that the grown up men and women ran to meet each 
other, giving way to their first impulses — even as children do." 

His emotions were as lively as a child's, and he ran to 



S>r, Cbalmers. 131 

discharge them. There was in all his ways a certain 
beautiful unconsciousness of self — an outgoing of the 
whole nature that we see in children, who are by learned 
men said to be long ignorant of the Ego — blessed in 
many respects in their ignorance! This same Ego, as it 
now exists, being perhaps part of " the fruit of that for- 
bidden tree :" that mere knowledge oigood&s well as of 
evil, which our great mother bought for us at such a 
price. In this meaning of the word, Dr. Chalmers, con- 
sidering the size of his understanding — his personal emi- 
nence — his dealings with the world — his large sympathies 
— his scientific knowledge of mind and matter — his relish 
for the practical details, and for the spirit of public busi- 
ness — was quite singular for his simplicity; and taking 
this view of it, there was much that was plain and 
natural in his manner of thinking and acting, which 
otherwise was obscure and liable to be misunderstood. 
We cannot better explain what we mean than by giving 
a passage from Fenelon, which D'Alembert, in his Eloge, 
quotes as characteristic of that " sweet-souled" prelate. 
We give the passage entire, as it seems to us to contain 
a very beautiful, and by no means commonplace truth : — 

" Fenelon," says D'Alembert, " a caracterise lui-meme en pen de mots 
cette simplicite qui le rendoit si cher a tous les coeurs. ' La simplicite est la 
droiture d'une ame qui s'interdit tout retour sur elle et sur ses actions — 
cette vertu est differente de la sincerite, et la surpasse. On voit beaucoup 
de gens qui sont sinceres sans etre simples — lis ne veulent passer que pour 
ce qu'ils sont, mais ils craignent sans cessede passer pour ce qu'ils ne sont 
pas. L'homme simple n'affecte ni la vertu, ni la verite meme ; il n'est 
jamais occupe de lui, il semble d'avoir perdu ce ;«<?/dont on est si jaloux. 1 " 

What delicacy and justness of expression ! how true 
and clear ! how little we see now-a-days, among grown- 
up men, of this straightness of the soul — of this losing or 
never finding " ce mot/" There is more than is perhaps 
generally thought in this. Man in a state of perfection, 
would no sooner think of asking himself — am I right ? 
am I appearing to be what inwardly I am ? than the eye 
asks itself — do I see ? or a child says to itself — do I love 
my mother? We have lost this instinctive sense ; we 
have set one portion of ourselves aside to watch the rest ; 
we must keep up appearances and our consistency ; we 
must respect — that is. look back upon — ourselves, and be 



132 Iborae Subsecivac. 

respected, if possible ; we must, by hook or by crook, be 
respectable. 

„ Dr. Chalmers would have been a sorry Balaam ; he 
was made of different stuff and for other purposes. Your 
" respectable" men are ever doing their best to keep 
their status, to maintain their position. He never 
troubled himself about his status ; indeed, we would say 
status was not the word for him. He had a sedes on which 
he sat, and from which he spoke ; he had an imperium, 
to and fro which he roamed as he listed : but a status 
was as little in his way as in that of a Mauritanian lion. 
Your merely " sincere" men are always thinking of what 
they said yesterday, and what they may say to-morrow, 
at the very moment when they should be putting - their 
whole self into to-day. Full of his idea, possessed by it, 
moved altogether by its power, — -believing, he spoke, and 
without stint or fear, often apparently contradicting his 
former self — careless about everything, but speaking fully 
his mind. One other reason for his apparent inconsis- 
tencies was, if one may so express it, the spaciousness of 
his nature. He had room in that capacious head, and 
affection in that great, hospitable heart, for relishing and 
taking in the whole range of human thought and feeling. 
He was several men in one. Multitudinous but not mul- 
tiplex, in him odd and apparently incongruous notions 
dwelt peaceably together. The lion lay down with the 
lamb. Voluntaryism and an endowment — both were best. 
He was childlike in his simplicity : though in under- 
standing a man, he was himself in many things a child. 
Coleridge says, every man should include all his former 
selves in his present, as a tree has its former years' growths 
inside its last; so Dr. Chalmers bore along with him his 
childhood, his youth, his early and full manhood into his 
mature old age. This gave himself, we doubt not, infinite 
delight — multiplied his joys, strengthened and sweetened 
his whole nature, and kept his heart young and tender, — 
it enabled him to sympathize, to have a fellow-feeling with 
all, of whatever age. Those who best knew him, who 
were most habitually with him, know how beautifully this 
point of his character shone out in daily, hourly life. We 
well remember Ions: ago loving him before we had seen 






I 




w 



Ik 



& 



Sir 






*%* 



•>■ -■*.■. 




HOW HE SET OFF HIS OWN HUGE ' FELLOW. 1 '* — Page 133. 



2>r. Gbatmerd. 133 

him — from our having been told, that being out one Sat- 
urday at a friend's house near the Pentlands, he collected 
all the children and small people — the other bairns, as he 
called them — and with no one else of his own growth, took 
the lead to the nearest hill-top, — how he made each take 
the biggest and roundest stone he could find, and carry, — 
how he panted up the hill himself with one of enormous 
size, — how he kept up their hearts, and made them shout 
with glee, with the light of his countenance, and with all 
his pleasant and strange ways and words, — how having 
got the breathless little men and women to the top of the 
hill, he, hot and scant of breath, looked round on the world 
and upon them with his broad benignant smile like the 
ari/pniuov Kvudruv yrlaaija. — the unnumbered laughter of 
the sea, — how he set off his own huge " fellow," — how he 
watched him setting out on his race, slowly, stupidly, 
vaguely at first, almost as if he might die before he began 
to live, then suddenly giving a spring and off like a shot — 
bounding, tearing, ai>ng t--£ird izedovde KxiXivdero Aaac avaidrfg, 
vires acquirens eundo ; how the great and good man was 
totus in Mo; how he spoke to, upbraided him, cheered 
him, gloried in him, all but prayed for him, — how he joked 
philosophy to his wondering and ecstatic crew, when he 
(the stone) disappeared among some brackens — telling 
them they had the evidence of their senses that he was in, 
they might even know he was there by his effects, by the 
moving brackens, himself unseen ; how plain it became 
that he had gone in, when he actually came out ! — how he 
ran up the opposite side a bit, and then fell back, and 
lazily expired at the bottom, — how to their astonishment, 
but not displeasure — for he " set them off so- well," and 
" was so funny " — he took from each his cherished stone, 
and set it off himself ! showing them how they all ran alike, 
yet differently ; how he went on, " making," as he said, " an 
induction of particulars," till he came to the Benjamin 
of the flock, a wee wee man, who had brought up a stone 
bigger than his own big head ; then how he let him, 
unicus omnium, set off his own, and how wonderfully IT 
ran ! what miraculous leaps : what escapes from impossi- 
ble places : and how it ran up the other side farther than 
any, and by some felicity remained there. 



1B4 f>orae Subsectvae. 

He was an orator in its specific and highest sense. We 
need not prove this to those who have heard him ; we 
cannot to those who have not. It was a living man 
sending living, burning words into the minds and heart of 
men before him, radiating his intense fervour upon them 
all ; but there was no reproducing the entire effect when 
alone and cool ; some one of the elements was gone. 
We say nothing of this part of his character, because 
upon this all are agreed. His eloquence rose like a tide, 
a sea, setting in, bearing down upon you, lifting up all its 
waves — " deep calling unto deep ;" there was no doing 
anything but giving yourself up for the time to its will. 
Do our readers remember Horace's description of Pindar? 

" Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres 
Quern super notas aluere ripas, 
Fervet immensusque ruit profundo 

Pindarus ore : 
— " per audaces nova dithyrambos 
Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur 

Lege solutis. 1 ' 

This is to our mind singularly characteristic of our per- 
fervid Scotsman. If we may indulge our conceit, we 
would paraphrase it thus. His eloquence was like a 
flooded Scottish river, — it had its origin in some exalted 
region — in some mountain-truth — some high, immutable 
reality ; it did not rise in a plain, and quietly drain its 
waters to the sea, — it came sheer down from above. He 
laid hold of some simple truth — the love of God, the 
Divine method of justification, the unchangeableness of 
human nature, the supremacy of conscience, the honour- 
ableness of all men : and having got this vividly before 
his mind, on he moved — the river rose at once, drawing 
everything into its course — 

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, — 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 

things outward and things inward, interests immediate 
and remote — God and eternity — men, miserable and im- 
mortal — this world and the next — clear light and un- 
searchable mystery — the word and the works of God — 
everything contributed to swell the volume and add to 



Dr. Cbalmers. 135 

the onward and widening flood. His river did net flow 
like Denham's Thames, — 

" Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 

There was strength, but there was likewise rage ; a fine 
frenzy — not unoften due mainly to its rapidity and to its 
being raised suddenly by his affections ; there was some 
confusion in the stream of his thoughts, some overflowing 
of the banks, some turbulence, and a certain noble im- 
mensity ; but its origin was clear and calm, above the 
region of clouds and storms. If you saw it ; if you took 
up and admitted his proposition, his starting idea, then 
all else moved on ; but once set agoing, once on his way, 
there was no pausing to inquire, why or \\o\\—fervet — 
ruit — -fertur, he boils — he rushes — he is borne along ; 
and so are all who hear him. 

To go on with our figure — There was no possibility of 
sailing up his stream. You must go with him, or you 
must go ashore. This was a great peculiarity with him, 
and puzzled many people. You could argue with him, 
and get him to entertain your ideas on any purely ab- 
stract or simple proposition, — at least for a time ; but 
once let him get down among practicals, among applica- 
tions of principles, into the regions of the affections and 
active powers, and such was the fervour and impetuosity 
of his nature, that he could not stay leisurely to discuss, 
he could not then entertain the opposite ; it was hurried 
off, and made light of, and disregarded, like a floating 
thing before a cataract. 

To play a little more with our conceit — The greatest 
man is he who is both born and made — who is at once 
poetical and scientific — who has genius and talent — each 
supporting the other. So with rivers. Your mighty 
world's river rises in high and lonely places, among the 
everlasting hills ; amidst clouds, or inaccessible clearness. 
On he moves, gathering to himself all waters ; refreshing, 
cheering all lands. Here a cataract, there a rapid ; now 
lingering in some corner of beauty, as if loath to go. Now 
shallow and wide, rippling and laughing in his glee ; now 
deep, silent, and slow ; now narrow and rapid and deep, 



136 Iborac Subsecivae. 

and not to be meddled with. Now in the open country ; 
not so clear, for other waters have come in upon him, and 
he is becoming- useful, no longer turbulent, — travelling 
more contentedly ; now he is navigable, craft of all kinds 
coming and going upon his surface for ever ; and then, as 
if by some gentle and great necessity, " deep and smooth, 
passing with a still foot and a sober face," he pays his 
last tribute to "the Fzscus, the great Exchequer, the sea" 
— running out fresh, by reason of his power and volume, 
into the main for many a league. 

Your mere genius, who has instincts, and is poetical 
and not scientific, who grows from within — he is like our 
mountain river, clear, wilful, odd ; running round corners; 
disappearing it may be underground, coming up again 
quite unexpectedly and strong, as if fed from some un- 
seen spring, deep down in darkness ; rising in flood with- 
out warning, and coming down like a lion ; often all but 
dry ; never to be trusted to for driving mills ; must at 
least be tamed and led off to the mill ; and going down 
full pace, and without stop or stay, into the sea. 

Your man of talent, of acquirements, of science — who 
is made, — who is not so much educed as edified ; who, 
instead of acquiring hisvi'rcs eundo, gets his vires fundi, 
from acquirement, and grows from without ; who serves 
his brethren and is useful ; he rises often no one knows 
where or cares ; has perhaps no proper fountain at all, 
but is the result of the gathered rain-water in the nigher 
flats ; he is never quite clear, never brisk, never danger- 
ous ; always from the first useful, and goes pleasantly in 
harness ; turns mills ; washes rags— makes them into 
paper; carries down all manner of dye-stuffs and fecu- 
lence ; and turns a bread-mill to as good purpose as any 
clearer stream ; is docile, and has, as he reaches the sea, 
in his dealings with the world, a river trust, who look 
after his and their own interests, and dredge him, and 
deepen him, and manage him, and turn him off into docks, 
and he is in the sea before he or you know it. 

Though we do not reckon the imagination of Dr. 
Chalmers among his master faculties, it was powerful, 
effective, magnificent. It did not move him, he took it up 



Dr. Cbalmers. 137 

as he went along - ; it was not that imperial, penetrating, 
transmuting function that we find it in Dante, in Jeremy 
Taylor, in Milton, or in Burke; he used it to emblazon 
his great central truths, to hang clouds of glory on the 
skirts of his illustration ; but it was too passionate, too 
material, too encumbered with images, too involved in the 
general melee of the soul, to do its work as a master. It 
was not in him, as Thomas Fuller calls it, " that inward 
sense of the soul, its most boundless and restless faculty ; 
for while the understanding and the will are kept, as 
it were, libera custodid to their objects of veritm et bonum, 
it is free from all engagements — digs without spade, flies 
without wings, builds without charges, in a moment 
striding from the centre to the circumference of the 
world by a kind of omnipotency, creating and annihilat- 
ing things in an instant — restless, ever working, never 
wearied." We may say, indeed, that men of his tempera- 
ment are not generally endowed with this power in largest 
measure ; in one sense they can do without it, in another 
they want the conditions on which its highest exercise de- 
pends. Plato and Milton, Shakspere and Dante and 
Wordsworth, had imaginations tranquil, sedate, cool, 
originative, penetrative, intense, which dwelt in the 
" highest heaven of invention." Hence it was that Chal- 
mers could personify or paint a passion ; he could give it in 
one of its actions ; he could not, or rather he never did 
impassionate, create, and vivify a person — a very different 
thing from personifying a passion — all the difference, as 
Henry Taylor says, between Byron and Shakspere. 

In his impetuosity, we find the rationale of much that 
is peculiar in the style of Dr. Chalmers. As a spoken 
style it was thoroughly effective.* He seized the nearest 

* We have not noticed his iterativeness, his reiterativeness, because it 
flowed naturally from his primary qualities. In speaking it was effective, 
and to us pleasing, because there was some new modulation, some addition 
in the manner, just as the sea never sets up one wave exactly like the last 
or the next. But in his books it did somewhere encumber his thoughts, 
and the reader's progress and profit. It did not arise, as in many lesser 
men, from his having said his say — from his having no more in him ; much 
less did it arise from conceit, either of his idea or of his way of stating it ; 
but from the intensity with which the sensation of the idea- if we may use 
the expression — made its first mark on his mind. Truth to him never 
seemed to lose its first freshness, its edge, its flavour ; and Divine truth, 



138 Iborae Subsecfvmc. 

weapons, and smote down whatever he hit. But from 
this very vehemence, this haste, there was in his general 
style a want of correctness, of selectness, of nicety, of that 
curious felicity which makes thought immortal, and en- 
shrines it in imperishable crystal. In the language of the 
affections he was singularly happy ; but in a formal state- 
ment, rapid argumentation and analysis, he was often as 
we might think, uncouth, imperfect, and incorrect : chiefly 
owing to his temperament, to his fiery, impatient, swelling 
spirit, this gave his orations their fine audacity — this 
brought out hot from the furnace, his new words — this 
made his numbers run wild — lege solutis. We are sure 
this view will be found confirmed by these " Daily Read- 
ings," when he wrote little, and had not time to get heated, 
and when the nature of the work, the hour at which it was 
done, and his solitariness, made his thoughts flow at their 
" own sweet will ;" they are often quite as classical in ex- 
pression, as they are deep and lucid in thought — reflect- 
ing heaven with its clouds and stars, and letting us see 
deep down into its own secret depths : this is to us one 
great charm of these volumes. Here he is broad and 
calm ; in his great public performances by mouth and 
pen, he soon passed from the lucid into the luminous. 

What, for instance, can be finer in expression than this ? 
" It is well to be conversant with great elements — life and 



we know, had come to him so suddenly, so fully, at mid-day, when he was 
in the very prime of his knowledge and his power and quickness — had so 
possessed his entire nature, as if, like him who was journeying to Damas- 
cus, a Great Light had shone round about him — that whenever he re- 
produced that condition, he began afresh, and with his whole utterance, 
to proclaim it. He could not but speak the things he had seen and felt, 
and heard and believed ; and he did it much in the same way, and in the 
same words, for the thoughts and affections and posture of his soul were 
the same. Like all men of vivid perception and keen sensibility, his mind 
and his body continued under impressions, both material and spiritual, after 
the objects were gone. A curious instance of this occurs to us. Some 
years ago, he roamed up and down through the woods near Auchindinny, 
with two boys as companions. It was the first burst of summer, and the 
trees were mere than usually enriched with leaves. He wandered about 
delighted, silent, looking at the leaves, "thick and numberless." As the 
three went on, they came suddenly upon a high brick wall, newly built, 
for peach trees, not yet planted. Dr. Chalmers halted, and looking stead- 
fastly at the wall, exclaimed most earnestly, "What foliage! what foli- 
age !" The boys looked at one another, and said nothing, but on getting 
home, expressed their astonishment at this very puzzling phenomenon. 
What a difference ! leaves and parallelograms ; a forest and a brick wall ! 



Br. Cbaimers. 139 

death, reason and madness." " God forgets not his own 
purposes, though he executes them in his own way, and 
maintains his own pace, which he hastens not and short- 
ens not to meet our impatience." " I find it easier to ap- 
prehend the greatness of the Deity than any of his moral 
perfections, or his sacredness ;" and this — 

" One cannot but feel an interest in Ishmael — figuring him to be a noble 
of nature — one of those heroes of the wilderness who lived on the produce 
of his bow, and whose spirit was nursed and exercised among the wild 
adventures of the life that he led. And it does soften our conception of 
him whose hand was against every man, and every man's hand against 
him, when we read of his mother's influence over him, in the deference of 
Ishmael to whom we read another example of the respect yielded to 
females even in that so-called barbarous period of the world. There was a 
civilisation, the immediate effect of religion in these days, from which 
men fell away as the world grew older." 

That he had a keen relish for material and moral 
beauty and grandeur we all know ; what follows shows 
that he had also the true ear for beautiful words, as at 
once pleasant to the ear and suggestive of some higher 
feelings : " I have often felt, in reading Milton and 
Thomson, a strong poetical effect in the bare enumeration 
of different countries, and this strongly enhanced by the 
statement of some common and prevailing emotion, which 
passed from one to another." This is set forth with great 
beauty and power in verses 14th and 15th of Exodus 
xv., — " The people shall hear and be afraid — sorrow shall 
take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the 
dukes of Edom shall be amazed — the mighty men of 
Moab, trembling shall take hold of them — the inhabitants 
of Canaan shall melt away." Any one who has a toler- 
able ear and any sensibility, must remember the sensation 
of delight in the mere sound — like the colours of a butter- 
fly's wing, or the shapeless glories of evening clouds, to 
the eye — in reading aloud such passages as these : 
" Heshbon shall cry and Elealeh : their voice shall be 
heard to Jahaz : for by the way of Luhith with weeping 
shall they go it up ; for in the way of Horonaim they 
shall raise a cry. — God came from Teman, the Holy One 
from Mount Paran. — Is not Calno as Carchemish ? is not 
Hamath as Arpad ? is not Samaria as Damascus ? — He 
is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron ; at Michmash 
he hath laid up his carriages : Ramah is afraid ; Gibeah of 



140 Iborae &ubsecfx>ae. 

Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim : 
cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth ! Mad- 
menah is removed ; the inhabitants of Gebim gather 
themselves to flee. — The fields of Heshbon languish, the 
vine of Sibmah ; I will water thee with my tears, O 
Heshbon and Elealeh." Any one may prove to him- 
self that much of the effect and beauty of these passages 
depends on these names ; put others in their room, and 
try them. 

We remember well our first hearing Dr. Chalmers. We 
were in a moorland district in Tweeddale, rejoicing in the 
country, after nine months of the High School. We heard 
that the famous preacher was to be at a neighbouring 
parish church, and off we set, a cartful of irrepressible 
youngsters. " Calm was all nature as a resting wheel." 
The crows, instead of making wing, were impudent and sat 
still ; the cart-horses were standing, knowing the day, at 
the fieldgates, gossiping and gazing, idle and happy ; the 
moor was stretching away in the pale sunlight —vast, dim, 
melancholy, like a sea ; everywhere were to be seen the 
gathering people, " sprinklings of blithe company ;" the 
country-side seemed moving to one centre. As we 
entered the kirk we saw a notorious character, a drover, 
who had much of the brutal look of what he worked in, 
with the knowing eye of a man of the city, a sort of big 
Peter Bell. 

" He had a hardness in his eye, 
He had a hardness in his cheek.' 1 

He was our terror, and we not only wondered, but were 
afraid when we saw him going in. The kirk was full as 
it could hold. How different in looks to a brisk town 
congregation ! There was a fine leisureliness and vague 
stare ; all the dignity and vacancy of animals ; eyebrows 
raised and mouths open, as is the habit with those who 
speak little and look much, and at far-off objects. The 
minister comes in, homely in his dress and gait, but hav- 
ing a great look about him, like a mountain among hills. 
The High School boys thought him like a " big one of 
ourselves," he looks vaguely round upon his audience, as 
if he saw in it one great object, not many. We shall 






Dr. Cbalmers. 141 

never forget his smile ! its general benignity ; — how he 
let the light of his countenance fall on us ! He read a 
few verses quietly ; then prayed briefly, solemnly, with his 
eyes wide open all the time, but not seeing. Then he 
gave out his text ; we forget it, but its subject was, 
" Death reigns." He stated slowly, calmly, the simple 
meaning of the words; what death was, and how and 
why it reigned ; then suddenly he started, and looked like 
a man who had seen some great sight, and was breathless 
to declare it ; he told us how death reigned — everywhere, 
at all times, in all places, how we all knew it, how we 
would yet know more of it. The drover, who had 
sat down in the table-seat opposite, was gazing up 
in a state of stupid excitement ; he seemed restless, 
but never kept his eye from the speaker. The tide 
set in — everything added to its power, deep called to 
deep, imagery and illustration poured in ; and every now 
and then the theme. — the simple, terrible statement, was 
repeated in some lucid interval. After overwhelming us 
with proofs of the reign of Death, and transferring to us 
his intense urgency and emotion ; and after shrieking, as 
if in despair, these words, " Death is a tremendous neces- 
sity." — he suddenly looked beyond us as if into some 
distant region, and cried out, "Behold a mightier! — who 
is this? He cometh from Edom, with dyed garments 
from Bozrah, glorious in his apparel, speaking in right- 
eousness, travelling in the greatness of his strength, 
mighty to save." Then, in a few plain sentences, he 
stated the truth as to sin entering, and death by sin, and 
death passing upon all. Then he took fire once more, 
and enforced, with redoubled energy and richness, the 
freeness, the simplicity, the security, the sufficiency of the 
great method of justification. How astonished and im- 
pressed we all were ! He was at the full thunder of his 
power ; the whole man was in an agony of earnestness. 
The drover was weeping like a child, the tears running 
down his ruddy, coarse cheeks — his face opened out and 
smoothed like an infant's ; his whole body stirred with 
emotion. We all had insensibly been drawn out of our 
seats, and were converging towards the wonderful 
speaker. And when he sat down, after warning each one of 



142 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

us to remember who it was, and what it was, that followed 
death on his pale horse,* and how alone we could escape — 
we all sunk back into our seats. How beautiful to our eyes 
did the thunderer look — exhausted — but sweet and pure 1 
How he poured out his soul before his God in giving 
thanks for sending- the Abolisher of Death ! Then a 
short psalm, and all was ended. 

We went home quieter than we came ; we did not re- 
count the foals with their long legs, and roguish eyes, 
and their sedate mothers ; we did not speculate whose 
dog that was, and whether that was a crow or a man in 
the dim moor, — we thought of other things. That voice, 
that face ; those great, simple, living thoughts ; those 
floods of resistless eloquence ; that piercing, shattering 
voice, — that " tremendous necessity." 

Were we desirous of giving to one who had never seen 
or heard Dr. Chalmers an idea of what manner of man he 
was — what he was as a whole, in the full round of his 
notions, tastes, affections, and powers, we would put this 
book into their hands, and ask them to read it slowly, bit 
by bit, as he wrote it. In it he puts down simply, and at 
once, what passes through his mind as he reads ; there is 
no making of himself feel and think — no getting into a 
frame of mind ; he was not given to frames of mind ; he 
preferred states to forms — substances to circumstances. 
There is something of everything in it — his relish for 
abstract thought — his love of taking soundings in deep 
places and finding no bottom — his knack of starting 
subtle questions, which he did not care to run to earth — 
his penetrating, regulating godliness — his delight in 
nature — his turn for politics, general, economical, and 
ecclesiastical — his picturesque eye — his humanity — his 
courtesy — his warm-heartedness — his impetuosity — his 
sympathy — with all the wants, pleasures, and sorrows of 
his kind — his delight in the law of God, and his simple, 
devout, manly treatment of it — his acknowledgment of 
difficulties — his turn for the sciences of quantity and num- 
ber, and indeed for natural science and art generally — 

* "And I looked, and behold a pale horse ; and his_ name that sat on 
him was Death, and Hell followed with him." — Rev. vi, 8, 



5>t\ Cbalmers. 143 

his shrewdness — his worldly wisdom — his genius ; all 
these come out — you gather them like fruit, here a little, 
and there a little. He goes over the Bible, not as a phi- 
losopher, or a theologian, or a historian, or a geologist, or a 
jurist, or a naturalist, or a statist, or a politician — picking 
out all that he wants, and a great deal more than he has 
any business with, and leaving everything else as barren 
to his reader as it has been to himself ; but he looks abroad 
upon his Father's word — as he used so pleasantly to do 
on his world — as a man, and as a Christian ; he submits 
himself to its influences, and lets his mind go out fully and 
naturally in its utterances. It is this which gives to this 
work all the charm of multitude in unity, of variety in 
harmony ; and that sort of unexpectedness and ease of 
movement which we see everywhere in nature and in 
natural men. 

Our readers will find in these delightful Bible Readings 
not a museum of antiquities, and curiosities, and laborious 
trifles ; nor of scientific specimens, analysed to the last 
degree, all standing in order, labelled and useless. They 
will not find in it an armoury of weapons for fighting 
with and destroying their neighbours. They will get less 
of the physic of controversy than of the diet of holy living. 
They will find much of what Lord Bacon desired, when 
he said, " We want short, sound, and judicious notes upon 
Scripture, without running into commonplaces, pursu- 
ing controversies, or reducing those notes to artificial 
method, but leaving them quite loose and native. For 
certainly, as those wines which flow from the first treading 
of the grape are sweeter and better than those forced 
out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the 
husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweet- 
est which flow from a gentle crush of the Scriptures, 
and are not rung into controversies and commonplaces." 
They will find it as a large pleasant garden ; no great 
system ; not trim, but beautiful, and in which there are 
things pleasant to the eye as well as good for food — 
flowers and fruits, and a few good esculent, wholesome 
roots. There are Honesty, Thrift, Eye-bright (Euphrasy 
that cleanses the sighO, Heart's-ease. The good seed in 
abundance, and the strange mystical Passion-flower ; and 



144 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

in the midst, and seen everywhere, if we but look for it, 
the Tree of Life, with its twelve manner of fruits — the 
very leaves of which are for the healing- of the nations. 
And perchance, when they take their walk through it at 
evening-time, or at " the sweet hour of prime, " they may 
see a happy, wise, beaming - old man at his work there — 
they may hear his well-known voice ; and if they have 
their spiritual senses exercised as they ought, they will 
not fail to see by his side " one like unto the Son of 
Man." 



2>r. (Beorge TOlson. 145 



DR. GEORGE WILSON. 



Among the many students at our University who some 
two-and-twenty years ago started on the great race, in the 
full flush of youth and health, and with that strong hunger 
for knowledge which only the young, or those who keep 
themselves so, ever know, there were three lads — Edward 
Forbes, Samuel Brown, and George Wilson — who soon 
moved on to the front and took the lead. They are now 
all three in their graves. 

No three minds could well have been more diverse in 
constitution or bias ; each was typical of a generic differ- 
ence from the others. What they cordially agreed in, was 
their hunting in the same field and for the same game. 
The truth about this visible world, and all that it contains, 
was their quarry. This one thing they set themselves to 
do, but each had his own special gift, and took his own 
road — each had his own special choice of instruments and 
means. Any one man combining their essential powers, 
would have been the epitome of a natural philosopher, in 
the wide sense of the man who would master the philoso- 
phy of nature. 

Edward Forbes, who bulks largest at present, and de- 
servedly, for largeness was of his essence, was the observer 
proper. He saw everything under the broad and search- 
ing light of day, white and uncoloured, and with an un- 
impassioned eye. What he was after were the real ap- 
pearances of things ; phenomena as such ; all that seems 
to be. His was the search after what is, over the great 
field of the world. He was in the best sense a natural 
historian, an observer and recorder of what is seen and of 
what goes on, and not less of what has been seen and 
what has gone on, in this wonderful historic earth of ours, 



146 Iborae Subsectoae. 

with all its fulness. He was keen, exact, capacious, — 
tranquil and steady in his gaze as nature herself. He 
was, thus far, kindred to Aristotle, to Pliny, Linnaeus, 
Cuvier, and Humboldt, though the great German, and the 
greater Stagirite, had higher and deeper spiritual insights 
than Edward Forbes ever gave signs of. It is worth 
remembering that Dr. George Wilson was up to his death 
engaged in preparing his Memoir and Remains for the 
press. Who will now take up the tale ? 

Samuel Brown was, so to speak, at the opposite pole — 
rapid, impatient, fearless, full of passion and imaginative 
power — desiring to divine the essences rather than the 
appearances of things — in search of the what chiefly in 
order to question it, make it give up at whatever cost the 
secret of its why ; his fiery, projective, subtle spirit, could 
not linger in the outer fields of mere observation, though 
he had a quite rare faculty for seeing as well as for look- 
ing, which latter act, however, he greatly preferred ; but 
he pushed into the heart and inner life of every question, 
eager to evoke from it the very secret of itself. Forbes, 
as we have said, wandered at will, and with a settled pur- 
pose and a fine hunting scent, at his leisure, and free 
and almost indifferent, over the ample fields — happy and 
joyous and full of work — unencumbered with theory or 
with wings, for he cared not to fly. Samuel Brown, whose 
wings were perhaps sometimes too much for him, more 
ambitious, more of a solitary turn, was for ever climbing 
the Mount Sinais and Pisgahs of science, to speak of 
Him whose haunt they were,— climbing there all alone 
and in the dark, and with much peril, if haply he might 
descry the break of day and the promised land ; or, to vary 
the figure, diving into deep and not undangerous wells, 
that he might the better see the stars at noon, and possi- 
bly find Her who is said to lurk there. He had more of 
Plato, though he wanted the symmetry and persistent 
grandeur of the son of Ariston. He was perhaps liker his 
own favourite Kepler ; such a man in a word as we have 
not seen since Sir Humphry Davy, whom in many things 
he curiously resembled, and not the least in this, that the 
prose of each was more poetical than the verse. 

His fate has been a mournful and a strange one, but he 



Dr. (Seorcjc Milson. 147 

knew it, and encountered it with a full knowledge of what 
it entailed. He perilled everything- on his theory ; and if 
this hypothesis — it may be somewhat prematurely uttered 
to the world, and the full working out of which, by rigid 
scientific realization, was denied him by years of intense 
and incapacitating suffering, ending only in death, but the 
"relevancy" of which, to use the happy expression of Dr. 
Chalmers, we hold him to have proved, and in giving a 
glimpse of which, he showed, we firmly believe, what has 
been called that " instinctive grasp which the healthy im- 
agination takes of possible truth," — if his theory of the 
unity of matter, and the consequent transmutability of the 
now called elementary bodies, were substantiated in the 
lower but essential platform of actual experiment, this, 
along with his original doctrine of atoms and their forces, 
would change the entire face of chemistry, and make a 
Cosmos where now there is endless agglomeration and 
confusion, — would, in a word, do for the science of the 
molecular constitution of matter and its laws of action and 
reaction at insensible distances, what Newton's doctrine of 
gravitation has done for the celestial dynamics. For, let it 
be remembered, that the highest speculation and proof in 
this department — by such men as Dumas, Faraday, and 
William Thomson, and others — points in this direction ; 
it does no more as yet perhaps than point, but some of 
us may live to see " resurgam" inscribed over Samuel 
Brown's untimely grave, and applied with gratitude and 
honour to him whose eyes closed in darkness on the one 
great object of his life, and the hopes of whose " unac- 
complished years" lie buried with him. 

Very different from either, though worthy of and capa- 
ble of relishing much that was greatest and best in both, 
was he whom we all loved and mourn, and who, this day 
week,* was carried by such a multitude of mourners to 
that grave, which to his eye had been open and read}' for 
years. 

George Wilson was born in Edinburgh in 1818. His 
father, Mr. Archibald Wilson, was a wine merchant, and 
died sixteen years ago ; his mother, Janet Aitken, still lives 

* Monday, 28th November 1859. 



148 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

to mourn and to remember him, and she will agree with 
us that it is sweeter to remember him than to have con- 
verse with the rest. Any one who has had the privilege 
to know him, and to enjoy his bright and rich and beauti- 
ful mind, will not need to go far to learn where it was 
that her son George got all of that genius and worth and 
delightfulness which is transmissible. She verifies what 
is so often and so truly said of the mothers of remarkable 
men. She was his first and best Alma Mater, and in 
many senses his last, for her influence over him continued 
through life. George had a twin brother, who died in 
early life ; and we cannot help referring to his being one 
of twins, something of that wonderful faculty of attracting 
and being personally loved by those about him, which was 
one of his strongest as it was one of his most winning 
powers. He was always fond of books, and of fun, the 
play of the mind. He left the High School at fifteen and 
took to medicine ; but he soon singled out chemistry, and, 
under the late Kenneth Kemp, and our own distinguished 
Professor of Materia Medica, himself a first-class chemist, 
he acquired such knowledge as to become assistant in the 
laboratory of Dr. Thomas Graham, then Professor of 
Chemistry in University College, and now Master of the 
Mint. So he came out of a thorough and good school, 
and had the best of masters. 

He then took the degree of M.D., and became a Lecturer 
on Chemistry, in what is now called the extra-academical 
school of medicine, but which in our day was satisfied 
with the title of private lecturers. He became at once a 
great favourite, and, had his health and strength enabled 
him, he would have been long a most successful and pop- 
ular teacher ; but general feeble health, and a disease in 
the ankle-joint requiring partial amputation of the foot, 
and recurrent attacks of a serious kind in his lungs, made 
his life of public teaching one long and sad trial. How 
nobly, how sweetly, how cheerily he bore all these long 
baffling years ; how his bright, active, ardent, unsparing 
soul lorded it over his frail but willing body, making it do 
more than seemed possible, and as it were by sheer force 
of will ordering it to live longer than was in it to do, those 
who lived with him and witnessed this triumph of spirit 



Dr. George tKHtteon. 149 

over matter, will not soon forget. It was a lesson to every 
one of what true goodness of nature, elevated and cheered 
by the highest and happiest of all motives, can make a 
man endure, achieve, and enjoy. 

As is well known, Dr. Wilson was appointed in 1855 
to the newly-constituted Professorship of Technology, and 
to the Curatorship of the Industrial Museum. The ex- 
penditure of thought, of ingenuity, of research and man- 
agement — the expenditure, in a word, of himself — involved 
in originating and giving form and purpose to a scheme 
so new and so undefined, and, in our view, so undefinable, 
must, we fear, have shortened his life, and withdrawn his 
precious and quite singular powers of illustrating and 
adorning, and, in the highest sense, sanctifying and bless- 
ing science, from this which seemed always to us his 
proper sphere. Indeed, in the opinion of some good 
judges, the institution of such a chair at all, and especially 
in connexion with a University such as ours, and the at- 
taching to it the conduct of a great Museum of the Indus- 
trial Arts, was somewhat hastily gone into, and might have 
with advantage waited for and obtained a little more con- 
sideration and forethought. Be this as it may, Dr. Wilson 
did his duty with his whole heart and soul — making a 
class, which was always increasing, and which was at its 
largest at his death. 

We have left ourselves no space to speak of Dr. Wil- 
son as an author, as an academic and popular lecturer, as 
a member of learned societies, as a man of exquisite liter- 
ary powers and fancy, and as a citizen of remarkable pub- 
lic acceptation. This must come from some more care- 
ful, and fuller, and more leisurely record of his genius and 
worth. W T hat he was as a friend it is not for us to say ; 
we only know that when we leave this world we would 
desire no better memorial than to be remembered by 
many as George Wilson now is, and always will be. His 
Life of Cavendish is admirable as a biography, full of 
life, of picturesque touches, and of realization of the man 
and of his times, and is, moreover, thoroughly scientific, 
containing, among other discussions, by far the best ac- 
count o f the great water controversy from the Cavendish 
point of view. His Life of John Reid is a vivid and 



150 fbovac Subeccivae. 

memorable presentation to the world of the true linea- 
ments, manner of life, and inmost thought and heroic 
sufferings, as well as of the noble scientific achievements 
of that strong, truthful, courageous, and altogether ad- 
mirable man, and true discoverer — a genuine follower of 
John Hunter. 

The Five Gateways of Knowledge is a prose poem, a 
hymn of the finest utterance and fancy — the white light of 
science diffracted through the crystalline prism of his 
mind into the coloured glories of the spectrum ; truth 
dressed in the iridescent hues of the rainbow, and not the 
less but all the more true. His other papers in the Brit- 
ish Quarterly, the North British Review, and his last 
gem on " Paper, Pens, and Ink," in his valued and gener- 
ous friend Macmillan's first number of his Magazine, are 
all astonishing proofs of the brightness, accuracy, vivacity, 
unweariedness of his mind, and the endless sympathy and 
affectionate play of his affections with the full round of 
scientific truth. His essay on " Colour Blindness" is, we 
believe, as perfect a monogram as exists, and will remain 
likely untouched and unadded to, factum ad unguem. 
As may be seen from these remarks, we regard him not 
so much as, like Edward Forbes, a great observer and 
quiet generalizer, or, like Samuel Brown, a discoverer and 
philosopher properly so called — though, as we have said, 
he had enough of these two men's prime qualities to 
understand and relish and admire them. His great qual- 
ity lay in making men love ascertained and recorded 
truth, scientific truth especially ; he made his reader and 
hearer enjoy facts. He illuminated the Book of Nature 
as they did the missals of old. His nature was so thor- 
oughly composite, so in full harmony with itself, that no 
one faculty could or cared to act without calling in all the 
others to join in full chorus. To take an illustration from 
his own science, his faculties interpenetrated and inter- 
fused themselves into each other, as the gases do, by a 
law of their nature. Thus it was that everybody under- 
stood and liked and was impressed by him ; he touched 
them at every point. Knowledge was to him no barren, 
cold essence : it was alive and flushed with the colours of 
the earth and sky, and all over with light and stars. His 



H>r. ecovgc TOlson. 151 

flowers — and his mind was full of flowers — were from 
seeds, and were sown by himself. They were neither 
taken from other gardens and stuck in rootless, as chil- 
dren do, much less were they of the nature of gumflowers, 
made with hands, wretched and dry and scentless. 

Truth of science was to him a body, full of loveliness, 
perfection, and strength, in which dwelt the unspeakable 
Eternal. This, which was the dominant idea of his 
mind — the goodliness, and not less the godliness of all 
science — made his whole life, his every action, every letter 
he wrote, every lecture he delivered, his last expiring 
breath, instinct with the one constant idea that all truth, 
all goodness, all science, all beauty, all gladness, are but 
the expression of the mind and will and heart of the 
Great Supreme. And this, in his case, was not mysticism, 
neither was it merely a belief in revealed religion, though 
no man cherished and believed in his Bible more firmly 
and cordially than he ; it was the assured belief, on purely 
scientific grounds, that God is indeed and in very truth all 
in all ; that, to use the sublime adaptation by poor crazy 
Smart, the whole creation, visible and invisible, spiritual 
and material, everything that has being, is — to those who 
have ears to hear — for ever declaring " Thou Art," before 
the throne of the Great I AM. 

To George Wilson, to all such men — and this is the 
great lesson of his life— the heavens are for ever telling 
His glory, the firmane'nt is for ever showing forth His 
handiwork ; day unto day, every day, is for ever uttering 
speech, and night unto night is showing knowledge con- 
cerning Him. When he considered these heavens, as he 
lay awake, weary, and in pain, they were to him the 
work of His fingers. The moon, walking in brightness, 
and lying in white glory on his bed — the stars — were by 
Him ordained. He was a singularly happy, and happy- 
making man. No one since his boyhood could have 
suffered more from pain, and languor, and the misery of 
an unable body. Yet he was not only cheerful, he was 
gay, full of all sorts of fun — genuine fun — and his jokes 
and queer turns of thought and word were often worthy 
of Cowper or Charles Lamb. We wish we had them 
collected. Being, from his state of health and his knowl- 



152 iborae Subsedvae. 

edge in medicine, necessarily "mindful of death," having 
the possibility of his dying any day or any hour, always 
before him, and that " undiscovered country," lying full 
in his view, he must, taking, as he did, the right notion of 
the nature of things — have had a peculiar intensity of 
pleasure in the every-day beauties of the world. 

" The common sun, the air, the skies, 
To him were opening Paradise." 

They were to him all the more exquisite, all the more alto- 
gether lovely, these Pentlands and the Braid Hills, and 
all his accustomed drives and places ; these rural solitudes 
and pleasant villages and farms, and the countenances of 
his friends, and the clear, pure, radiant face of science and 
of nature, were to him all the more to be desired and 
blessed and thankful for, that he knew the pallid king at 
any time might give that not unexpected knock, and sum- 
mon him away. 




A NOTE WAS BROUGHT IN." — Page 153. 



Mote* on &rt. 153 



NOTES ON ART. 



" The use of this feigned history" {the Ideal Arts of Poesy, Painting, 
Music, &c.) " hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the 

MIND OF MAN IN THESE POINTS WHEREIN THE NATURE OF THINGS DOTH 

deny IT, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul ; by reason 
whereof, there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample great- 
ness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can 
be found in the nature of things. So it appeareth that Poesy" (and the 
others) " scrveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to 
delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some partici- 
pation of divineness because IT doth raise and erect the mind, by 
submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas 
reason" {science, philosophy) " doth buckle and bozu the mind to the 
nature of things.' 1 '' — Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learn- 
ing. 

" To look on noble forms 

Makes noble through the sensuous organism 

That which is higher." — The Princess. 

" The statue" of the Duke Lorenzo by Michael A ngelo "is larger 
than life, but not so large as to shock belief. It is the most real and 
unreal thing that ever came from the chisel.'"' — Note in Rogers's 
" Italy." These two zvords, " real and unreal" comprehend the 
philosophy of art ; which proposes to itself the idealizing of the real, 
and the realizing of the ideal. 

One evening- in the spring of 1846, as my wife and I 
were sitting- at tea, Parvula in bed, and the Sputchard 
reposing, as was her wont, with her rugged little brown 
forepaws over the edge of the fender, her eyes shut, 
toasting, and all but roasting herself at the fire, — a note 
was brought in, which, from its fat, soft look, by a hope- 
ful and not unskilled palpitation I diagnosed as that form 
of lucre which in Scotland may well be called filthy. I 
gave it across to Madam, who, opening it, discovered 
four five-pound notes, and a letter addressed to me. She 
gave it me. It was from Hugh Miller, editor of the 
Witness newspaper, asking me to give him a notice of the 



154 f)orae Subsedvae, 

Exhibition of the Scottish Academy then open, in words 
I now forget, but which were those of a thorough gentle- 
man, and enclosing the aforesaid fee. I can still remem- 
ber, or indeed feel the kind of shiver, half of fear and 
pleasure, on encountering this temptation ; but I soon 
said, " You know I can't take this ; I can't write ; I never 
wrote a word for the press." She, with " wifelike govern- 
ment," kept the money, and heartened me to write, and 
write I did, but with awful sufferings and difficulty, and 
much destruction of sleep. I think the only person who 
suffered still more must have been the compositor. Had 
this packet not come in, and come in when it did, and had 
the Sine Qua Non not been retentive and peremptory, 
there are many chances to one I might never have plagued 
any printer with my bad hand and my endless corrections, 
and my general incoherency as to proofs, teste Jacobo 
Grey. 

I tell this small story, partly for my own pleasure, and 
as a tribute to that remarkable man, who stands along- 
side of Burns and Scott, Chalmers and Carlyle, the fore- 
most Scotsmen of their time — a rough, almost rugged 
nature, shaggy with strength, clad with zeal as with a 
cloak, in some things sensitive and shamefaced as a girl ; 
moody and self-involved, but never selfish ; full of courage, 
and of keen insight into nature and men, and the prin- 
ciples of both, but simple as a child in the ways of the 
world ; self-taught and self-directed, argumentative 
and scientific, as few men of culture have ever been, 
and yet with more imagination than either logic or 
knowledge ; to the last as shy and Mate as when working 
in the quarries at Cromarty. In his life a noble example 
of what our breed can produce, of what energy, honesty, 
intensity, and genius can achieve ; and in his death a 
terrible example of that revenge which the body tajces 
upon the soul when brought to bay by its inexorable 
taskmaster. I need say no more. His story is more 
tragic than any tragedy. Would to God it may warn those 
who come after to be wise in time, to take the same — I 
ask no more — care of their body, which is their servant, 
their beast of burden, as they would of their horse. 

Few men are endowed with such a brain as Hugh Mil- 



notes on Brt 155 

ler — huge, active, concentrated, keen to fierceness ; and 
therefore few men need fear, even if they misuse and over- 
task theirs as he did, that it will turn, as it did with him, and 
rend its master. But as assuredly as there is a certain 
weight which a bar of iron will bear and no more, so is 
there a certain weight of work which the organ by which 
we act, by which we think, and feel, and will — cannot sus- 
tain, blazing up into brief and ruinous madness, or sinking 
into idiocy. At the time he wrote to me, Mr. Miller and 
I were strangers, and I don't think I ever spoke to him ; 
but his manner of doing the above act made me feel, that 
in that formidable and unkempt nature there lay the deli- 
cacy, the generosity, the noble trustfulness of a gentleman 
born — not made. But my chief reason for what I have 
written is to make a sort of excuse for reprinting portions 
of these papers, and of some others which have appeared 
from time to time in the Scotsman. I reprint them mainly, 
it must be confessed, to fill up the volume, having failed 
to do what I had purposed in the way of new matter, 
from want of leisure ; and I suspect also from want of 
material. I therefore must be understood as making 
much the same sort of apology as a housewife makes for 
a cold dinner, — a want of time, and, it may be, a want of 
beef. 

Most men have, and almost every man should have, a 
hobby : it is exercise in a mild way, and does not take 
him away from home ; it diverts him ; and by having a 
double line of rails, he can manage to keep the permanent 
way in good condition. A man who has only one object 
in life, only one line of rails, who exercises only one set of 
faculties, and these only in one way, will wear himself out 
much sooner than a man who shunts himself every now 
and then, and who has trains coming as well as going ; 
who takes in as well as gives out. 

My hobby has always been pictures, and all we call 
Art. 1 have fortunately never been a practitioner, though 
I think I could have made a tolerable hand ; but unless a 
man is a thoroughly good artist, he injures his enjoyment, 
generally speaking, of the art of others. I am convinced, 
however, that to enjoy art thoroughly, every man must 
have in him the possibility of doing it as well as liking it. 



156 iborae Subsectvae. 

He must feel it in his fingers, as well as in his head and 
at his eyes ; and it must find its way from all the three to 
his heart, and be emotive. 

Much has been said of the power of Art to refine men, 
to soften their manners, and make them less of wild 
beasts. Some have thought it omnipotent for this ; others 
have given it as a sign of the decline and fall of the nobler 
part of us. Neither is and both are true. Art does, as 
our Laureate says, make nobler in us what is higher than 
the senses through which it passes ; but it can only make 
nobler what is already noble ; it cannot regenerate, neither 
can it of itself debase and emasculate and bedevil man- 
kind ; but it is a symptom, and a fatal one, when Art 
ministers to a nation's vice, and glorifies its naughtiness 
— as in old Rome, as in Oude — as also too much in 
places nearer in time and place than the one and the 
other. The truth is, Art, unless quickened from above 
and from within, has in it nothing beyond itself, which 
is visible beauty — the ministration to the lust, the de- 
sire of the eye. But apart from direct spiritual wor- 
ship, and self-dedication to the Supreme, I do not know- 
any form of ideal thought and feeling which may be 
made more truly to subserve, not only magnanimity, but 
the purest devotion and godly fear ; by fear, meaning 
that mixture of love and awe, which is specific of the 
realization of our relation to God. I am not so silly as to 
seek painters to paint religious pictures in the usual 
sense : for the most part, I know nothing so profoundly 
profane and godless as our sacred pictures ; and I can't 
say I like our religious beliefs to be symbolized, even as 
Mr. Hunt has so grandly done in his picture of the Light 
of the World. But if a painter is himself religious ; if he 
feels God in what he is looking at, and in what he is 
rendering back on his canvas : if he is impressed with the 
truly divine beauty, infinity, perfection, and meaning of 
unspoiled material nature — the earth and the fulness 
thereof, the heaven and all its hosts, the strength of the 
hills, the sea and all that is therein ; if he is himself 
impressed with the divine origin and divine end of all 
visible things, — then will he paint religious pictures and 
impress men religiously, and thus make good men better, 



IRotes on Bit. 157 

and possibly make bad men less bad. Take the land- 
scapes of our own Harvey. He is my dear old friend of 
thirty years, and his power as a painter is only less than 
his fidelity and ardour as a friend, and that than his 
simple, deep-hearted piety ; I never see one of his tran- 
scripts of nature, be they solemn and full of gloom, with a 
look "that threatens the profane;" or laughing all over 
with sunshine and gladness, but I feel something beyond, 
something greater and more beautiful than their great- 
ness and their beauty — the idea of God, of the beginning 
and the ending, the first and the last, the living One ; of 
whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things ; 
who is indeed God over all, blessed for ever ; and whom 
I would desire, in all humbleness of mind, to sanctify in 
my heart, and to make my fear and my dread. This is 
the true moral use of Art, to quicken and deepen and 
enlarge our sense of God. I don't mean so much our 
belief in certain articulate doctrines, though I am old- 
fashioned enough to think that we must know what as 
well as in whom we believe — that our religion, like every- 
thing else, must " have its seat in reason, and be judi- 
cious ;" I refer rather to that temper of the soul, that 
mood of the mind in which we feel the unseen and 
eternal, and bend under the power of the world to come. 

In my views as to the office of the State I hold with 
John Locke and Coventry Dick,* that its primary, and 
probably its only function is to protect us from our ene- 
mies and from ourselves : that to it is intrusted by the 
people " the regulation of physical force ;" and that is 
indeed little more than a transcendental policeman. 
This is its true sphere, and here lies its true honour and 
glory. When it intermeddles with other things, — from 
your Religion, Education, and Art, down to the number, 

* In the thin octavo, The Office of the State, and in its twin volume on 
Church Polity, there will be found in clear, strong, and singularly candid 
language, the first lines of the sciences of Church and State politics. It 
does not say much for the sense and perspicuity of the public mind, if two 
such books are allowed to fall aside, and such a. farrago of energetic non- 
sense and error as Mr. Buckle's first, and we trust last, volume on Civili- 
sation, is read, and admired, and bought, with its bad logic, its bad facts, 
and its bad conclusions. In bulk and in value his volume stands in the 
same relation to Mr. Dick's, as a handful, I may say a gowpcn of chaff 
does to a grain of wheat, or a bushel of sawdust to an ounce of meal. 



158 f>orae Subsecfvae* 

and size, and metal of your buttons, it goes out of its line 
and fails ; and I am convinced that with some benefits, 
specious and partial, our Government interference has, in 
the main and in the long run, done harm to the real 
interests of Art. Spontaneity, the law of free choice, is 
as much the life of Art as it is of marriage, and it is not 
less beyond the power of the State to choose the nation's 
pictures than to choose its wives. Indeed there is a great 
deal on the physiological side to be said for law interfer- 
ing in the matter of matrimony. I would certainly make 
it against law, as it plainly is against nature, for cousins- 
german to marry ; and if we could pair ourselves as we 
pair our live stock, and give ear to the teaching of an 
enlightened zoonomy, we might soon drive many of our 
feilest diseases out of our breed ; but the law of person- 
ality, of ultroneousness, of free will, that which in a great 
measure makes us what we are, steps in and forbids 
anything but the convincement and force of reason. 
Much in the same way, though it be a more trivial matter, 
pleasure, in order to please, must be that which you your- 
self choose. You cannot make an Esquimaux forswear 
train oil, and take to tea and toast like ourselves, still less 
to boiled rice like a Hindoo ; neither can you all at once 
make a Gilmerton carter prefer Raphael and claret to a 
glass of raw whisky and the Terrific Register. Leviathan 
is not so tamed or taught. And our Chadwicks and 
Kay,e Shuttleworths and Coles — kings though they may- 
be — enlightened, energetic, earnest, and as full of will as 
an egg is full of meat, cannot in a generation make the 
people of England as intelligent as themselves, or as fond 
and appreciative of the best Art as Mr. Ruskin. Hence 
all their plans are failing and must fail ; and I cannot 
help thinking that in the case of Art the continuance of 
the Cole dynasty is not to be prayed for very much. As 
far as I can judge, it has done infinitely more harm than 
good. These men think they are doing a great work, 
and, worse still, the country thinks so too, and helps them, 
whereas I believe they are retarding the only wholesome, 
though slow growth of knowledge and taste. 

Take the Kensington Museum : the only thing there (I 
speak in all seriousness) worth any man spending an hour 



IRotes on But. 159 

or a shilling upon, are the Sheepshank and Turner galler- 
ies ; all those costly, tawdry, prodigious, and petty dis- 
plays of arts and manufactures, I look upon as mere delu- 
sions and child's play. Take any one of them, say the 
series illustrating the cotton fabrics : you see the whole 
course of cotton from its Alpha to its Omega, in the neat- 
est and prettiest way. What does that teach ? what im- 
pression does that make upon any young mind? Little 
beyond mere vapid wonder. The eye is opened, but not 
rilled ; it is a stare, not a look. 

If you want to move, and permanently rivet, a young 
mind with what is worth the knowing, with what is to 
deepen his sense of the powers of the human mind, and 
the resources of nature, and the grandeur of his country, 
take him to a cotton-mill. Let him hear and come under 
the power of that wonderful sound pervading the whole 
vast house, and filling the air with that diapason of regu- 
lated, harmonious energy. Let him enter it, and go round 
with a skilled workman, and then follow the Alpha 
through all its marvellous transformations to the Omega ; 
do this, and you bring him out into the fresh air not only 
more knowing, but more wise. He has got a lesson. He 
has been impressed. The same with calico-printing, and 
pottery, and iron-founding, and, indeed, the whole round 
of that industry, which is our glory. Do you think a boy 
will get half the good from the fine series of ores and 
specimens of pig-iron, and all the steels he may see in 
cold-blood, and with his grandmother or his sweetheart 
beside him at Kensington, that he will from going into 
Dixon's foundry at Govan, and seeing the half-naked men 
toiling in that place of flame and energy and din — watch- 
ing the mighty shears and the Nasmyth-hammers, and the 
molten iron kneaded like dough, and planed and shaved 
like wood: he gets the dead and dissected body in the 
one case ; he sees and feels the living spirit and body 
working as one, in the other. And upon all this child's 
play, this mere make-believe, our good-natured nation is 
proud of spending some half-million of money. Then 
there is that impertinent, useless, and unjust system of 
establishing Government Schools of Design in so many of 
our towns, avowedly, and, I believe (though it is amazing 



160 t>orae Subsectvae. 

that clever men should do such a foolish thing-) honestly, 
for the good of the working classes, but actually and 
lamentably, and in every way harmfully, for the amuse- 
ment and benefit of the wealthy classes, and to the ruin 
of the hardworking and legitimate local teachers. 

I have not time or space, but if I had I could prove this, 
and show the curiously deep injuries this system is inflicting 
on true Art, and upon the freedom of industry. 

In the same line, and to the same effect, are our Art- 
Unions and Associations for " the encouragement" of 
Art ; some less bad than others, but all bad, because 
founded upon a wrong principle, and working to a wrong 
end. No man can choose a picture for another, any more 
than a wife or a waistcoat. It is part of our essential 
nature to choose these things for ourselves, and paradoxi- 
cal as it may seem, the wife and the waistcoat and the 
work of Art our departmental wiseacres may least approve 
of, if chosen sua sponte by Giles or Roger, will not only 
give them more delectation, but do them more good, than 
one chosen by somebody else for him upon the finest 
of all possible principles. Besides this radical vice, these 
Art-Unions have the effect of encouraging, and actually 
bringing into professional existence, men who had much 
better be left to die out, or never be born ; and it, as I 
well know, discourages, depreciates, and dishonours the 
best men, besides keeping the public, which is the only 
true and worthy patron, from doing its duty, and getting 
its due. Just take our Edinburgh Association, in many 
respects one of the best, having admirable and devoted 
men as its managers, — what is the chance that any of the 
thousand members, when he draws a prize, gets a picture 
he cares one straw for, or which will do his nature one 
particle of good ? Why should we be treated in this mat- 
ter as we are treated in no way else? Who thinks of 
telling us, or founding a Royal Association with all its 
officers, to tell us what novels or what poetry to read, or 
what music to listen to? Think of a Union for the 
encouragement of Poetry, where Mr. Tennyson would be 
obliged to put in his In Memoriam, or his Idylls of the 
King, along with the Lyrics and the Sonnets of we don't 
gay who, into a common lottery, and be drawn for at an 



Wotes on &rt. id 

annual speechifying ! All such associations go to en- 
courage quantity rather than quality. Now, in the ideal 
and pleasurable arts quality is nearly everything. One 
Turner not only transcends ten thousand Claudes and 
Vanderveldes ; he is in another sphere. You could not 
thus sum up his worth. 

One of the most flagrant infractions of the primary laws of 
political economy, and one of the most curious illustrations 
of the fashionable fallacies as to Government encourage- 
ment to Art, is to be found in the revelations in the 
Report of the Select Committee on the South Kensington 
Museum. Mr. Lowe, and the majority of the Committee, 
gave it as their opinion, that Government should deal in 
photographs, and undersell them (thereby ruining the 
regular trade), and all for the encouragement of Art, and 
the enlightenment of the public ! Can there be anything 
more absurd than this, and at this time of day ? and not only 
absurd and expensive, but mischievous. All this, you 
see, would be avoided, and society left to provide its own 
Art, as it provides its own beef and trowsers for itself ; if 
men would hold with John Locke and Coventry Dick, and 
Egomet, that Government, the State, has simply nothing 
to do with these things, that they are ultra vires not less 
than religion, and, I am bold to add, education. 

One other drawback to Art taking its place alongside its 
sisters — Poetry and Music — is the annual Exhibitions. 
Nothing more thoroughly barbarous and childish could be 
devised than this concentrating the mental activity of the 
nation in regard to the Art of the year upon one month. 
Fancy our being obliged to read all our novels, and all our 
poetry, and hear all our music in a segment of our year! 
Then there is the mixing up of all sorts of pictures — sa- 
cred and profane, gay and sombre, etc. — all huddled to- 
gether, and the eye flitting from one to the other.* Hence 
the temptation to paint down to the gaudiest pictures, 
instead of up or into the pure intensity of nature. Why 
should there not be some large public hall to which artists 
may send their pictures at any time when they are per- 

* In our excellent National Gallery (Edinburgh), a copy of Titian's 
Ariadne in Naxos is hung immediately above Wilkie's sacred sketch of 
John Knox administering the Sacrament in Calder House ! 



162 Ifoorae Subsecivae. 

fected ? but, better still, let purchasers frequent the stu- 
dios, as they did of old, full of love and knowledge. Why 
will we insist in pressing our Art and our taste, as we 
did long ago our religion and our God, upon our neigh- 
bours ? Why not trust to time, and to cultivating our 
own tastes earnestly, thoroughly, humbly, and for our- 
selves, rilling our houses with the best of everything, and 
making all welcome to see them, and believing that the 
grandchildren of those who come to see our Turners and 
Wilkies and Hogarths will be wiser and more refined 
than we ? It is most lamentable to witness the loss of 
money, of energy, and in a measure of skill, and, above 
all, of time, on those engravings, which no one but a 
lodging-keeper frames, and those Parian statuettes and 
Etruscan pitchers and tazzas of all sorts, which no one 
thinks half so much of, or gets half so much real pleasure 
and good from, as from one of John Leech's woodcuts. 
One true way to encourage Art is to buy and enjoy 
Punch. There is more fun, more good drawing, more 
good sense, more beauty in John Leech's Punch pictures, 
than in all the Art-Union illustrations, engraving, statu- 
ettes, etc. etc., put together. Could that mighty Poten- 
tate have been got up, think you, by a committee of gen- 
tlemen, and those drawings educed by proffered prizes ? 
No ; they came out, and have flourished according to a 
law as natural and as effective as the law of seed-time 
and harvest ; and Art, as a power to do good, will never 
reach its full perfection till it is allowed to walk at liberty, 
and follow the course of all other productions, that of 
supply and demand, individual demand and voluntary 
supply. It is not easy to tell how far back these well- 
meaning, zealous, deluded men who have managed these 
"encouragements," have put the progress of the nation in 
its power of knowing and feeling true Art. 

One other heresy I must vent, and that is to protest 
against the doctrine that scientific knowledge is of much 
direct avail to the artist ; it may enlarge his mind as a 
man, and sharpen and strengthen his nature, but the 
knowledge of anatomy is, I believe, more a snare than 
anything else to an artist as such. Art is the tertiitm 
quid resulting from observation and imagination, with 



motes on Hrt. 163 

skill and love and downrightness as their executors ; 
anything that interferes with the action of any of these, is 
killing to the soul of Art. Now, painting has to do sim- 
ply and absolutely with the surfaces, with the appear- 
ances of things ; it knows and cares nothing for what is 
beneath and beyond, though if it does its own part aright 
it indicates them. Phidias and the early Greeks, there is 
no reason to believe, ever dissected even a monkey, much 
less a man, and yet where is there such skin, and mus- 
cle, and substance, and breath of life ? When Art be- 
came scientific, as among the Romans, and lost its heart 
in filling its head, see what became of it : anatomy offen- 
sively thrust in your face, and often bad anatomy ; men 
skinned and galvanized, not men alive and in action. In 
the same way in landscape, do you think Turner would 
have painted the strata in an old quarry, or done Ben 
Cruachan more to the quick, had he known all about ge- 
ology, gneiss, and greywacke, and the Silurian system ? 
Turner might have been what is called a better-informed 
man, but we question if he would have been so good, not 
to say a better representer of the wonderful works of God, 
which were painted on his retina, and in his inner cham- 
ber — the true Camera lucida, the chamber of imagery 
leading from the other, — and felt to his finger-tips. No ; 
science and poetry are to a nicety diametrically opposed, 
and he must be a Shakspere and a Newton, a Turner 
and a Faraday all in one, who can consort much with 
both without injury to each. It is not what a man has 
learned from others, not even what he thinks, but what 
he sees and feels, which makes him a painter. 

The moral from all this is, love Art, and if you choose, 
practise Art. Purchase Art for itself alone, and in the 
main for yourself alone. If you so do, you will encourage 
Art to more purpose than if you spent thousands a year 
in Art-Unions, and in presenting the public with what 
pleased you ; just as a man does most good by being 
good. Goldsmith puts it in his inimitable way — " I was 
ever of opinion that the honest man, who married and 
brought up a large family, did more service than he who 
continued single, and only talked of population." 

I have said those things strongly, abruptly, and perhaps 



164 Iborae Subsecivae, 

rudely ; but my heart is in the matter. Art is part of my 
daily food, like the laughter of children, and the common 
air, the earth, the sky ; it is an affection, not a passion to 
come and go like the gusty wind, nor a principle cold and 
dead ; it penetrates my entire life, it is one of the surest 
and deepest pleasures, one of the refuges from " the 
nature of things," as Bacon would say, into that enchanted 
region, that " ampler aether," that " diviner air," where we 
get a glimpse not only of a Paradise that is past, but of a 
Paradise that is to come. 

There is one man amongst us who has done more to 
breathe the breath of life into the literature and the philoso- 
phy of Art, who has "encouraged" it ten thousand times 
more effectually than all our industrious Coles and 
anxious Art-Unions, and that is the author of Modern 
Painters. I do not know that there is anything in our 
literature, or in any literature, to compare with the effect of 
this one man's writings. He has by his sheer force of 
mind, and fervour of nature, the depth and exactness of 
his knowledge, and his amazing beauty and power of lan- 
guage, raised the subject of Art from being subordinate 
and technical, to the same level with Poetry and Philoso- 
phy. He has lived to see an entire change in the public 
mind and eye, and, what is better, in the public heart, on 
all that pertains to the literature and philosophy of repre- 
sentative genius. He combines its body, and its soul. 
Many before him wrote about its body, and some well ; a 
few, as Charles Lamb and our great " Titmarsh," touched 
its soul : it was left to John Ruskin to do both. * 

* This great writer was first acknowledged as such by our big quarterlies, 
in the North British Review, fourteen years ago, as follows: — 

" This is a very extraordinary and a very delightful book, full of truth 
and goodness, of power and beauty. If genius may be considered (and it 
is as serviceable a definition as is current) that power by which one man 
produces for the use or the pleasure of his fellow-men, something at once 
new and true, then have we here its unmistakable and inestimable handi- 
work. Let our readers take our word for it, and read these volumes 
thoroughly, giving themselves up to the guidance of this most original 
thinker, and most attractive writer, and they will find not only that they 
are richer in true knowledge, and quickened in pure and heavenly affec- 
tions, but they will open their eyes upon a new world — walk under an 
ampler heaven, and breathe a diviner air. There are few things more 
delightful or more rare, than to feel such a kindling up of the whole facul- 
ties as is produced by such a work as this ; it adds a "precious seeing to 



tiotcs on art. 165 



DISTRAINING FOR RENT. 

Of this picture it is not easy to speak. We do not at 
first care to say much about feelings such as it produces. 
It is, to our liking-, Wilkie's most perfect picture. If they 
were all to be destroyed but one, we would keep this. 
His " Blind Man's Buff," his " Penny Wedding," his 
" Village Politicians," and many others, have more 
humour, — his " John Knox preaching," more energy, — 
his " John Knox at the Sacrament," more of heaven and 
victorious faith ; but there is more of human nature, 
more of the human heart, in this, than in any of the 
others. It is full of 

" The still, sad music of humanity ;" 

still and sad, but yet musical, by reason of its true ideality, 
the painter acting his part as reconciler of men to their 
circumstances. This is one great end of poetry and 
painting. Even when painful and terrible in their sub- 
jects, " they are of power, by raising pity and fear or 
terror, to purge the mind of suchlike passions, — that is, 
to temper and reduce them to just measure with a 
kind of delight ;" or, in the words of Charles Lamb, " they 
dispose the mind to a meditative tenderness." 

the eye," — makes the ear more quick of apprehension, and, opening our 
whole inner man to a new discipline, it fills us with gratitude as well as 
admiration towards him to whom we owe so much enjoyment. And what 
is more, and better than all this, everywhere throughout this work, we 
trace evidences of a deep reverence and godly fear — a perpetual, though 
subdued acknowledgment of the Almighty, as the sum and substance, the 
beginning and the ending of all truth, of all power, of all goodness, and of 
all beauty. 

" This_ book (Modern Painters) contains more true philosophy, more 
information of a strictly scientific kind, more original thought and exact 
observation of nature, more enlightened and serious enthusiasm, and more 
eloquent writing, than it would be easy to match not merely in works of 
its own class, but in those of any class whatever. It gives us a new, and 
we think the only true theory of beauty and sublimity; it asserts and 
proves the existence of a new element in landscape painting, placing its 
prince upon his rightful throne ; it unfolds and illustrates, with singular 
force, variety, and beauty, the laws of art ; it explains and enforces the 
true nature and specific function of the imagination, with the precision 
and fulness of one having authority, — and all this delivered in language 
which, for purity and strength and native richness, would not have dis- 
honoured the early manhood of Jeremy Taylor, of Edmund Burke, or of 
the author's own favourite Richard Hooker." — J. B. 



166 Iborae Subsecivae* 

But to return to this most touching and impressive 
picture. What an immediate hold it took of us ! How 
that sad family was in our mind for days after, and how 
we found ourselves wondering if nothing could be done 
for them ! It is just about as difficult to bring the mind 
to criticise it, as it would be to occupy ourselves in think- 
ing why and how we were affected, if we were ourselves 
to witness the scene in actual life. We would be other- 
wise occupied. Our eyes first fell on what is the immedi- 
ate occasion of it all, the paper warrant ; you feel its 
sharp parallelogram cutting your retina, it is the whitest, 
and therefore the first thing you see ; and then on the 
husband. What utter sadness, — what a sober certainty 
of misery, — how uncomplaining, as if he could not speak, 
his firm mouth keeping it to himself! His eyes are all 
but shut, — how their expression is given, seems to us 
quite marvellous; and his attitude cast down, but not 
abject — bearing it like a man. How his fingers are painted, 
and his careless, miserable limbs, his thin cheek, with 
that small hungry hollow mark in its centre ! What a 
dignity and beauty in his face ! This is to us a finer head 
than the wonderful one in Retzsch's " Man playing at 
Chess with the Devil for his Soul," and this is not saying 
little. Reason and steady purpose are still uppermost. 

Not so with his poor wife : her heart is fast failing ; she 
is silent too ; but she is fainting, and just about to slip off 
her chair in utter unconsciousness ; her eyes are blind ; 
the bitterness of death is gathering on her soul. She is 
forgetting her sucking child, as she is all outward things ; 
it is rolling off her knee, and is caught by her motherly 
daughter ; while her younger brother, whose expressive 
back is only seen, is pulling his father's coat, as if to say, 
" Look at mother !" Behind are two neighbours come in, 
and sympathizing both, but differently; the meek look of 
the one farthest away, what can be finer than that ! The 
paleness of the fainting mother is rendered with perfect 
truth. What an eye the painter must have had ! — how 
rapid, how true, how retentive of every impression ! Be- 
hind these silent sufferers goes on the action of the story. 
The brother, a young, good-looking, fearless fellow, is 
shaking his fist and fixing his angry eyes on the constable, 



IRotes on Brt. 167 

who returns the look as resolutely, but without anger. 
This figure of the constable is in many respects as 
astonishing as anything in the picture. He is " a man 
with a presence" — inexorable, prompt, not to be triiied 
with ; but he is not, as many other artists would have 
made him, and wished us to call him, " the brutal Bailiff." 
He is doing his duty, as he is plainly saying, pointing to 
his warrant, and nothing more : he cannot help it, and 
the law must have its course. What a fine figure he is, 
the only one standing erect, and what rich colour in his 
waistcoat ! Seated on the bed is the smart, indifferent 
clerk, with his pale, smug countenance. A man of busi- 
ness, and of nothing else, he seems to be running up the 
value of these bedclothes, — that bed, with its sad-coloured 
curtains, and all its memories of births and deaths. Be- 
hind is a man whose face we don't exactly make out : he 
has a sleepy, tipsy, altogether unknowable sort of expres- 
sion. We don't think this a defect in the painter : it is 
the most likely thing in the world that such a person 
would be there. 

Then comes the cobbler, straight from his stall, where, 
as from a throne, he dispenses his " think," — and a strong 
think it is, — to all comers, upon all subjects. He has 
opinions of his own about most things, but chiefly upon 
civil, ecclesiastical, and marital jurisdiction, " with a 
power of law" in him. He is enjoining submission and 
composure upon all onlookers. His hands, how they 
speak ! the one to the bailiff, deferential, confidential, 
gently deprecatory ; the other, to the eompanv in general, 
imperative, final, minatory. He is vindicating the law, 
and laying it down somewhat unseasonably, and is even 
hinting that they should rejoice at its arrangements. 
That brave old woman, inspired by anger, is bearing 
down upon both cobbler and bailiff, with occasional darts 
of her furious eye at the unconscious clerk. This 
woman's face is expressive beyond all description. 
Look at her fore-finger, as straight, as well-aimed, as 
unmistakably deadly in intention, as a sword, or rather 
pistol ; and, could intensity of will have made a fire, we 
may reckon on its shot having been soon into the stately 
bailiff. But she has a sword in her ton true : how it is 



168 Ibovae Subscctvae. 

plying its work from behind these old straggling teeth ! — 
no man can tame it ; and her cruel, furious eyes, aiming 
every word, sending it home. 

How well Shakspere describes this brilliant old lady ! 
— " She is misusing him past the endurance of a block : 
an oak with but one green leaf would have answered her. 
She huddles jest upon jest, with such impossible convey- 
ance, that he stands like a man at a mark, with a whole 
army shooting at him !" 

What a contrast to her, the woman behind, " her face 
foul with weeping," crying her very eyes and soul out, 
like a child ! 

What a picture ! so simple, so great, so full (to use a 
word of Wilkie's own) of intellectuality — and the result, 
though sad, salutary. How strange ! We never saw 
these poor sufferers, and we know they have no actual 
existence ; and yet our hearts go out to them, — we are 
moved by their simple sorrows. We shall never forget 
that enduring man and that fainting mother. 

There is another personage yet to speak of. Some of 
our readers may never have seen him : we can assure 
them he has seen them. This is the dog, — the family 
dog, — the friend of them all, from baby upwards. We 
find him just where he should be, and at his own proper 
work. He is under his master's chair, and at his feet, 
looking out from between his legs. His master, as Burns 
has with wonderful meaning expressed it, is his god. 
" Man is the god of the dog."* How much may we 
learn from this ! 

With that fine instinct, compounded of curiosity, ex- 
perience, and affection, he has made his observations on 
the state of things ! All is not right, he sees, — something 
very far wrong. He never before saw her look in that 
way, or him so quiet and strange. Accordingly, as he is 
eminently practical, and holds with Hume and many great 
men, that all we know of causation is one thing following 
upon another (being a dog, and not a philosopher, he 
pays no attention to the qualification " invariably"), and, 

*I am wrong in this. Bacon first uses this thought in his Essay on 
Atheism. Burns improves it. 



notes on mt. 169 

putting two things together, he finds this dismal, unin- 
telligible state of matters following upon the entrance of 
these three strange men. He has been doing diligence, 
and serving and executing warrants, in his own wild and 
vigorous way, upon their six legs — specially, we doubt 
not, upon the tight pantaloons of that cold-blooded clerk. 
They are so tempting ! Having been well kicked by all 
for his pains, he has slunk into his den, where he sits 
biding his time. What a pair of wide awake, dangerous 
eyes ! No " speculation" in them — no looking before or 
after ; but looking into the present — the immediate. Poor 
fellow, his spare diet for some time back — his half-filled 
bicker — have not lessened his natural acuteness, his 
sharpness of teeth and temper. Our readers will, we fear, 
be tired of all this about a dog, and " such a vulgar 
little dog." We happen to hold high views on the 
moral and social bearings of dogs, especially of terriers, 
those affectionate and great-hearted little ruffians ; but 
as our friends consider us not sane on this point, and 
as we (as is common in such cases) think quite the 
reverse, we shall not now dispute the matter. One 
thing we may say, that we are sure Wilkie would 
have taken our side. He has a dog, and often more, in 
almost every one of his pictures ; and such dogs ! not wee 
men in hairy skins, pretending to be dogs. His dogs are 
dogs in expression, as well as in body. Look, in his en- 
gravings, at the dog in the " Rent Day ;" in " Blind Man's 
Buff," that incomparable one, especially, who is flattened 
hopelessly and ludicrously under the weight of a chair and 
a man — how utterly quenched, and yet how he is giving 
a surly grin at his own misery ; and the dog in the Gentle 
Shepherd, as gentle as his master; and that great-headed 
mastiff under the gun-carriage — a very " dog of war" — in 
" The Maid of Saragossa" — to us the hero of the picture ; 
and, above all, the little pet dog in the " Only Daughter" — 
its speaking, imploring ways, as it looks to its dying 
mistress. What a wonderful art! We cannot leave this 
inestimable picture, without expressing our personal 
gratitude to our public-spirited Academy for furnishing 
us every year with some of this great master's works. 
We trust we shall have one of his, and one of Turner's 



170 Iborac Subsecivae/ 

every year. They elevate public feeling ; they tend, like 
all productions of high and pure genius, to the glory of 
God, and the good of mankind ; they are a part of the 
common wealth. We end our notice of this picture by 
bidding our readers return to it, and read it over and 
over, through and through. Let them observe its moral 
effect — not to make the law and its execution hateful or 
unsightly, or vice or inprovidence interesting or pictu- 
resque. Wilkie takes no side but that of our common 
nature, and does justice to the bailiff as well as to the 
distressed family. We have here no hysterical passions — 
no shaking of fists against the heavens, and sending up 
thither mingled blasphemy and prayer, as some melo- 
dramatic genius might have done. Let them remark the 
stillness of the great sufferers, and how you know what 
they have come through — the consummate art in arrang- 
ing the parts of the subject — its simplicity at first — its 
fulness afterwards when looked into — more in it than 
meets the eye. Mind must be exercised upon it to bring 
out its mind. The white table-cloth, leading the eye at 
once to the heart of the picture ; the table dividing the two 
groups, and preventing its being a crowd ; the figure of 
the father given entire, indicating his total dejection from 
head to foot, — his hands, his finger-nails, — the dignity and 
self-containment of his sorrow : all the hands are wonder- 
ful, and above all, as we have noticed, the cobbler's; — 
the general air of the house not squalid — no beggarly 
elements — no horrors of actual starvation — all respectable, 
and poverty-stricken and scrimp ; — the bone lying on the 
floor, on which our small four-footed Spartan may have 
been rehearsing his "'Pleasures of Memory," and whiling 
and whittling away his idle hours, and cheating his angry 
hunger : — the bed — its upright posts — the stately Bailiff 
alone as erect and firm ; — the colour of the curtains — their 
very texture displayed ; the colouring sober, powerful, not 
loud (to borrow from the ear) ; — the absence of all effort, 
or mere cleverness, or pretension ; no trace of handicraft ; 
you know it to be painted — you do not feel it ; the com- 
position as fine, as musical, as Raphael's ; — the satisfying 
result ; your whole nature, moral and affectionate — your in- 
ward and outward eye — fed with food convenient for them. 



fltotea on &rt. m 

It has long been a question in the ethics of fiction, 
whether sympathy with ideal sorrows be beneficial or mis- 
chievous. That it is pleasurable we all know. And a 
distinction has been made between pity as an emotion end- 
ing with its own gratification, and pity as a motive, amov- 
ing power, passing, by a necessity of its nature, into 
action and practical performance. 

But, without going into the subject, we may give, as a 
good practical rule, let your moral sense be so clear and 
healthy as to discern at once the genuine objects of pity ; 
and then, let them be fictitious or real, you may pity them 
safely with all your might. In either case you will get 
good, and the good will not end with yourself, even in the 
first case. 

The story of Joseph, for instance, is to us fictitious, or 
rather, it is ideal ; and in weeping over him, or over his 
heart-btoken father, we know we can do them no good, 
or give them no sympathy ; but where will you find a 
merely human story more salutary, more delightful, more 
appropriate, to every one of our intellectual, moral, and, 
let us add, our imaginative and aesthetical faculties ? 

We are inclined to rank Hogarth and Wilkie as the 
most thoughtful of British painters, and two of the great- 
est of all painters. 

Some people, even now, speak of Hogarth as being at 
best a sort of miraculous caricaturist, and a shockingly 
faithful delineator of low vice, and misery, and mirth, but 
deficient in knowledge of the human figure, and in 
academical skill, and as having fallen short of the require- 
ments of " high art." 

We thought Charles Lamb had disposed of this untruth 
long ago ; and so he did. But some folks don't know 
Charles Lamb, and we shall, for their sakes, give them a 
practical illustration of his meaning, and of ours. If 
Hogarth did not know the naked human figure (and we 
deny that he did not), he knew the human face and the 
naked human heart — he knew what of infinite good and evil, 
joy and sorrow, life and death, proceeded out of it. Look at 
the second last of the series of " Manage a la Mode." 

If you would see what are the wages of sin, and how, 
after being earned, they are beginning to be paid, look on 



l?2 Iborae Subsecwae. 

that dying man, — his body dissolving, falling not like his 
sword, firm and entire, but as nothing but a dying thing 
could fall, his eyes dim with the shadow of death, in his 
ears the waters of that tremendous river, all its billows 
going over him, the life of his comely body flowing out 
like water, the life of his soul ! — who knows what it is 
doing? Fleeing through the open window, undressed, 
see the murderer and adulterer vanish into the outer 
darkness of night, anywhere, rather than remain ; and that 
guilty, beautiful, utterly miserable creature on her knee, 
her whole soul, her whole life, in her eyes, fixed on her 
dying husband, dying for and by her! What is in that 
poor desperate brain, who can tell ! Mad desires for life, 
for death, — prayers, affections, infinite tears, — the past, 
the future, — her maiden innocence, her marriage, his love, 
her guilt, — the grim end of it all, — the night-watch with 
their professional faces, — the weary wind blowing Through 
the room, the prelude, as it were, of that whirlwind in 
which that lost soul is soon to pass away. The man who 
could paint so as to suggest all this, is a great man and a 
great painter. 

Wilkie has, in like manner, been often misunderstood 
and misplaced. He is not of the Dutch school, — he is not 
a mere joker upon canvas, — he can move other things 
besides laughter ; and he rises with the unconscious ease 
of greatness to what ever height he chooses. Look at 
John Knox's head in " The Administering the Sacrament 
in Calder House." Was the eye of faith ever so express- 
ed, the seeing things that are invisible ? 

Hogarth was more akin to Michael Angelo : they both 
sounded the same depths, and walked the same terrible 
road. Wilkie has more of Raphael, — his affectionate 
sweetness, his pleasantness, his grouping, his love of the 
beautiful. 

THOMAS DUNCAN. 

Duncan possessed certain primary qualities of mind, 
without which no man, however gifted, can win and keep 
true fame. He had a vigorous and quick understanding, 
invincible diligence, a firm will, and that combination, in 



notes on &rt. 173 

action, of our intellectual, moral, and physical natures, 
which all acknowledge, but cannot easily define, manliness. 

As an artist, he had true genius, that incommunicable 
gift, which is born and dies with its possessor, never again to 
reappear with the same image and superscription. The 
direction of this faculty in him was towards beauty of 
colour and form, — its tendency was objective rather than 
subjective ; the outward world came to him, and he noted 
with singular vigilance and truth all its phenomena. His 
perception of them was immediate, intense, and exact, 
and he could reproduce them on his canvas with astonish- 
ing dexterity and faithfulness. This made his sketches 
from nature quite startling, from their direct truth. There 
are two of them in Mr. Hay's gallery, — one, a girl with her 
bonnet on, sitting knitting at a Highland fireside ; the other, 
a quaint old vacant room in George Heriot's Hospital. 

But his glory, his peculiar excellence, was his colouring ; 
there was a charm about it, a thing that could not be 
understood, but was felt. How transparent its depth, — 
how fresh, —how rich to gorgeousness, — how luminous, as 
from within ! 

His power over expression was inferior to his colouring. 
Not that he can be justly said to have failed in his exercise of 
this faculty ; he rather did not attempt its highest range. His 
mind lingered delighted, at his eve ; and if his mind did pro- 
ceed inwards, it soon returned, and contented itself with 
that form of expression which, if wemaysospeak, lies in clos- 
est contact with material beauty. Therefore it is that he 
often brought out, with great felicity and force, some simple 
feeling, some fixed type of character common to a class, but 
did not care to ascend to the highest heaven of invention, or 
stir the depths of imagination and passion. Nature was 
perceived by him, rather than imagined ; and he transferred 
rather than transfigured her likeness. As a consequence, 
his works delight more than move, interest more than 
arrest. In a remarkable sketch left behind him of an in- 
tended picture of Wishart administering the Sacrament 
before his execution, there is one truly ideal head, — a 
monk, who is overlooking the touching solemnity, and in 
whose pinched, withered face are concentrated the utter- 
most bigotry, malice, and vileness of nature, his cruel 



174 Iborac Subsecivae. 

small eyes gleaming as if " set on fire of hell." Dun- 
can's mind was romantic, rather than historical. We see 
this in his fine picture of " Prince Charles's Entry into 
Edinburgh." He brings that great pageant out of its 
own time into ours, rather than sends us back to it. This 
arose, as we have said, from the objective turn of his 
mind ; and would have rendered him unsurpassed in the 
representation of contemporaneous events. What a 
picture, had he lived, would he have made of the Queen 
at Taymouth ! the masterly, the inimitable sketch of 
which is now in the Exhibition. We have an ancient 
love of one of his early pictures, — " Cuddy Headrig and 
Jenny Dennistoun." Cuddy has just climbed up with 
infinite toil ; and, breathless with it and love, he is resting 
on the window-sill on the tips of his toes and fingers, in 
an attitude of exquisite awkwardness, staring, with open 
mouth and eyes, and perfect blessedness, on his buxom, 
saucy Jenny. Duncan's fame will, we are sure, rest 
chiefly on his portraits. They are unmatched in modern 
times, except by one or two of Wilkie's, and that most 
noticeable " Head of a Lady," by Harvey, in the inner 
octagon. Duncan's portraits are liker than their originals. 
He puts an epitome of a man's character into one look. 
The likeness of Dr. Chalmers has something of every- 
thing in him, — the unconsciousness of childhood, — the 
fervour of victorious manhood, — the wise contemplative- 
ness of old age, — the dreamy inexpressive eye of genius, 
in which his soul lies, " like music slumbering on its 
instrument," ready to awake when called — the entire 
loveableness of the man — the light of his countenance, — 
his heavenly smile, — are all there, and will carry to after 
times the express image of his person. How exquisite 
the head of D. O. Hill's daughter ! so full of love and 
simpleness, the very realization of Wordsworth's lines : — 

" Loving she is, and tractable, though wild, 
And innocence hath privilege in her 
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes, 
And feats of cunning." 

There was something mournful and touching in the 
nature and progress of the last illness of this great artist. 
His unresting energy, his manly diligence, urged him 



IRctes on Brt 175 

beyond his powers ; his brain gave way, and blindness 
crept slowly on him. It was a sort of melancholy conso- 
lation that, as the disease advanced, his intense suscepti- 
bility and activity were subdued, when their exercise 
must have only produced misery and regret. What is 
now infinitely more important is, that those who knew 
him best have little doubt, that while the outward world, 
with its cares, its honours, its wondrous beauty, its vain 
shows, was growing dim, and fast vanishing away, the 
eyes of his understanding became more and more en- 
lightened, and that he died in the faith of the truth. If 
so, he is, we may rest assured, in a region where his in- 
tense perception of beauty, his delight in all lovely forms, 
and in the goodliness of all visible things, will have full 
exercise and satisfaction, and where that gift which he 
carries with him as a part of himself will be dedicated to 
the glory of its Giver, — the Father of Lights. 

We believe it to be more than a pleasant dream, that 
in the regions of the blessed each man shall retain for 
ever his innate gifts, and shall receive and give delight by 
their specific exercise. Such a thought gives, as it ought, 
to this life an awful, but not undelightful significance. He 
who, in his soul, and by a necessity of his nature, is a poet 
or a painter, will, in a spiritual sense, remain so for ever. 



PALESTRINA. 

We miss Turner's great landscape, " Palestrina," with 
its airy fulness and freedom, — its heaven and earth mak- 
ing one imagery, — its daylight, its sunlight, its magical 
shadows, — that city set upon a hill, each house clinging 
to the rocks like swallows' nests, — its waters murmuring 
on for ever, and sending up their faint steam into the 
fragrant air, that oblique bridge, so matchlessly drawn, — 
those goats browsing heedless of us, — in one word, its 
reality, and its something more ! 

One day last year, while waiting for a friend, we sat 
down in the rooms, and were thinking of absent things ; 
some movement made us raise our eyes, and for that in- 
stant we were in Italy. We were in the act of wondering 



176 Iborae Subsecivme* 

what we should see, when we reached the other end of 
that cool and silent avenue ; and if one of these goats had 
looked up and stared at us, we should have hardly been 
surprised. It had, while it lasted, " the freshness and the 
glory of a dream." 

We shall never forget this picture. It gave us a new 
sensation, a new and a higher notion of what the mind of 
man can put into, and bring out of, landscape painting ; 
how its representative and suggestive truthfulness may be 
perfect, forming the material elements, — the body, as it 
were, of the picture, — while, at the same time, there may 
be superadded that fine sense of the indefinable relation 
of the visible world to mental emotion, which is its essence 
and vivifying soul. 

How original, how simple, its composition ! That tall 
tree, so inveterately twisted on itself, dividing the scene 
into two subjects, each contrasting with and relieving the 
other ; the open country lying under the full power of the 
flaming mid-clay sun ; and that long alley, with its witchery 
of gleam and shadow, its cool air, a twilight of its own, 
at noon ! 

Nothing is more wonderful about Turner than the reso- 
lute way in which he avoids all imitation, even when the 
objects are in the foreground and clearly defined. He 
gives you an oak, or a beech, or an elm, so as to be un- 
mistakable, and yet he never thinks of giving their leaves 
botanically, so as that we might know the tree from a 
leaf. He gives us it not as we know it, but as we should 
see it from that distance ; and he gives us all its charac- 
teristics that would carry that length, and no more. He 
is determined to give an idea, not a copy, of an oak. This 
is beautifully seen in his " Ivy Bridge," — a picture, the 
magical simplicity of which grows upon every look. There 
is a birch there, the lady of the wood, which any nursery- 
man would tell you was a birch ; and yet look into it, and 
what do you see ? Turner sets down results of sight, not 
the causes of these results. His way is the true aesthetic, 
— the other is the scientific. 



IWotes on &rt. 177 



HUNT THE SLIPPER. 

We plead guilty to an inveterate, and, it may be, not 
altogether rational, antipathy to Mr. Maclise's pictures. 
As vinegar to the teeth, as smoke to the eyes, or as the 
setting of a saw to the ears, so are any productions of his 
pencil we have met with to our aesthetic senses. We get 
no pleasure from them except that of hearty anger and 
strong contrast. Their hot, raw, garish colour — the chalky 
dry skin of his women — the grinning leathern faces of his 
men — and the entire absence of toning — are as offensive 
to our eyesight as the heartlessness, the grimace, the want 
of all naturalness in expression or feeling, in his human 
beings, are to our moral taste. 

There is, no doubt, wonderful cleverness and facility in 
drawing legs and arms in all conceivable positions, con- 
siderable dramatic power in placing his figures, and a sort 
of striking stage effect, that makes altogether a smart, 
effective scene ; and if he had been able to colour like 
Wilkie, there would have been a certain charm about 
them. But you don't care — at least we don't care — to 
look at them again ; they in no degree move us out of 
ourselves into the scene. They are so many automata, 
and no more. To express shortly, and by example, what 
we feel about his picture of " Hunt the Slipper," we 
would say it is in all points the reverse of Wilkie's picture 
opposite, " The Distraining for Rent," in colour, concep- 
tion, treatment, bodily expression, spiritual meaning, mor- 
al effect. Mr. Maclise's women are pretty, not beautiful ; 
prim, not simple : their coyness, as old Fuller would say, 
is as different from true modesty as hemlock is from 
parsley — there is a meretriciousness about them all, which, 
as it is entirely gratuitous, is very disagreeable. The 
vicar is not Oliver Goldsmith's Dr. Primrose. 

The best thing in the picture is the mantelpiece, with 
its odds and ends : the china cups and saucers, and that 
Hindu god, sitting in dropsical dignity — these are imitated 
marvellously, as also is the old trunk in the right corner. 
As far as we have seen, Mr. Maclise's gift lies in this 
small fancy line. We remember some game and a cab- 



178 Iborae Subsectvae. 

inet in his " Robin Hood," that would have made Horace 
Waipole or our own Kirkpatrick Sharpe's mouth water ; 
the nosegays of the two London ladies are also cleverly 
painted, but too much of mere fac-similes. Nothing can 
be worse in colour or in aerial perspective than the quaint 
old shrubbery seen through the window ; it feels nearer 
our eye than the figures. As to the figures, perhaps the 
most life-like in feature and movement are the two bad 
women, Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs and 
Lady Blarney. 

The introduction of them into the story is almost the 
only blemish of that exquisite piece, and we have still less 
pleasure in seeing their portraits. How different from 
Hogarth's terrible pictures of the same miserable class ! 
There you see the truth ; you can imagine the past and 
the future, as well as perceive the present. Beauty, grace, 
often tenderness, sinking into ruin under the steady in- 
fluence of a life of sin, make them objects at once of our 
profoundest compassion — and of our instant reprobation. 
But we must stay our quarrel with Mr. Maclise. We 
have perhaps been unlucky in the specimens of his genius 
that we have seen — the only other two being the " Bohe- 
mians" and " Robin Hood ;" the first a picture of great 
but disagreeable power — a sort of imbroglio of everything 
sensual and devilish — the very superfluity of naughtiness 
— as bad, and not so good as the scene in the Brocken in 
Goethe's Faust. Mr. Maclise may find a list of subjects 
more grateful to the moral sense, more for his own good 
and that of his spectators, and certainly not less fitted 
to bring into full play all the best powers of his mind, 
and all the craft of his hand, in Phil. iv. 8. 

" Robin Hood" was rather better, because there were 
fewer women in it ; but we could never get beyond that 
universal grin which it seemed the main function of 
Robin and his " merrie men" to sustain. Of the land- 
scape we may say, as we did of his figures and Wilkie's, 
that it was in every respect the reverse of Turner's. 

We have been assured by those whose taste we know 



Ittotes on mu 179 

in other matters to be excellent, that Mr. Maclise is a 
great genius, a man of true imagination ; and that his 
"Sleeping Beauty," his scene from Macbeth, and some 
others, are the proofs of this. We shall wait till we see 
them, and hope to be converted when we do ; but, mean- 
while, we suspect that his Imagination may turn out to 
be mere Fancy, which are as different, the one from the 
other, as word-wit is from deep humour, or as Queen 
Mab (a purely fanciful description) is from Miranda or 
Ariel. Fancy is aggregative and associative, — Imagina- 
tion is creative, motive. As Wordsworth in one of his 
prefaces beautifully says,—" The law under which the 
processes of Fancy are carried on is as capricious as the 
accidents of things, and the effects are surprising, playful, 
ludicrous, or pathetic, as the objects happen to be appo- 
sitely produced or fortunately combined. Fancy depends 
upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters 
her thoughts and images, trusting that their numbers, 
and the felicity with which they are linked together, will 
make amends for the want of individual value ; or she 
prides herself upon the curious subtlety, and the success- 
ful elaboration, with which she can detect their lurking 
affinities. If she can win you over to her purpose, she 
cares not how unstable or transitory maybe her influence, 
knowing that it will not be out of her power to resume it 
on apt occasion. But Imagination is conscious of an in- 
destructible dominion, — the soul may fall away from it, 
not being able to sustain its grandeur; but if once felt 
and acknowledged, by no other faculty of the mind can it 
be relaxed, impaired, or diminished. Fancy is given to 
quicken and beguile the temporal parts of our nature, — 
Imagination to awaken and to support the eternal." 
The one is the plaything, the other the food, the elixir of 
the soul. All great poets, as Homer, Shakspere, Milton, 
and Burns, have both faculties, and find fit work for each ; 
and so have the great painters, Titian, Veronese, Al- 
bert Durer, Hogarth, Wilkie. We suspect Mr. Maclise 
has little else than fancy, and makes it do the work of 
both. There must be something radically defective in 
the higher qualities of poetic sensibility and ideality in 
any man who could, as he has done in the lately published 



180 Iborae Subeectvae. 

edition of Moore's Melodies, execute some hundreds of 
illustrations, without above three or four of them being 
such as you would ever care to see again, or, indeed, 
would recognise as having ever seen before. 

We would not give such sweet humour, such maidenly 
simpleness, such exquisite mirth, such " quips, and 
cranks, and wanton wiles," as we can get in most of the 
current numbers of " Punch," from the hand of young 
Richard Doyle (1846), with drawing quite as astonishing, 
and far more expression, — for this sumptuous three- 
guinea quarto. Have our readers six-and-sixpence to 
spare ? — then let them furnish wholesome fun and " un- 
reproved pleasure" for the eyes and the minds of the 
small men and women in the nursery, by buying " The 
Fairy Ring," illustrated by him. 



THREE LANDSEERS. 

It would not be easy to say which of these three de- 
lightful pictures gives the most delight ; only, if we were 
forced to name which we should best like to possess, 
we would say, " Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale," — 
one of the most wonderful bits of genius and its handi- 
work we ever had the pleasure of enjoying and being the 
better of. 

The others are "The Maid and the Magpie," and 
" The Pen, the Brush, and the Chisel," — the latter pre- 
sented by Lady Chantrey to Her Majesty, and having for 
its subjects Chantrey's well-known bust of Sir Walter in 
the clay, with the sculptor's tools lying beside it, and his 
finger prints, fresh and soft, full of thought and will, 
giving a fine realization of work going on. The expres- 
sion of the then Great Unknown is very noble — he looks 
like a mighty shade ; beside the bust is a terrier, such as 
only Sir Edwin can give, with a keen look, as if he too 
smelt some one. Two woodcocks are resting in front in 
a fold of the table-cloth ; doubtless the two famous birds 
which Sir Francis brought down at one shot, and im- 
mortalized in marble. At the corner of the picture, and 
stealthily peering from behind the table-cloth, is a cat's 



motes on art. 181 

head, not yet seeing the game, but nosing it. You can 
easily imagine the lively scrimmage when puss makes 
herself and her ends known, and when the unsuspected 
" Dandie" comes down upon her. The feeling and 
workmanship of this beautiful conceit is such as no one 
else could originate and express. 

" The Maid and the Magpie" is a rustic tragedy told 
at a glance. It is milking-time, in a dreamy summer-day. 
Phillis, 

"So buxom, blithe, and debonair," 



is filling her pail, her meek-eyed, lady-like cow — she is a 
high-bred Alderney — enjoying herself as cows know why 
during this process of evacuation and relief. Her glum, 
unsatisfied calf, who has been all the morning protesting 
and taking instruments, and craving extracts, and in vain, 
is looking and listening, hungry and sulky ; he never can 
understand why he gets none of his mother's, of his own 
milk ; — the leather muzzle, all bristling with sharp rusty 
nails, tells his miseries and his mother's too. Thestylis 
is leaning forward, awkward and eager, at the door, 
making love to Phillis in his own clumsy and effective 
way, whittling all the while destructively at the door-post 
with his knife. It is the old, old story. She has her 
back turned to him, and is pretending to be very deep in 
the milking, while her eye — which you see, and he doesn't 
— says something quite else. In the right corner are two 
goats, one a magnificent rugged billy. On the green 
beyond, in the sunshine, may be seen the geese making 
off on feet and wings to the well-known " henwife," who 
is at the wicket with her punctual mess. Among the 
trees, and up in the cloudless, sunny air, is the village 
spire, whose bells Thestylis doubtless hopes some day 
soon to set a ringing. All very pretty and innocent and 
gay. But look in the left corner, — as if he had this 
moment come in, he is just hopping into their paradise, — 
is that miscreant magpie, who, we all know, was a pil- 
ferer from the beginning, and who next moment, you 
know, will have noiselessly grabbed that fatal silver spoon 
in the posset-cup, — which Phillis can't see, for her heart 



182 Iborae Subsectvae. 

is in her eye, — this same spoon, as we all know, bringing 
by and by death into that little world, and all their woe. 
We never remember the amari aliquid coming upon us 
so unawares, ugly and fell, like that old Toad squat at 
the ear of Eve. The drawing, the expression, the whole 
management of this little story, is exquisite. Perhaps 
there is a little overcrowding and huddling together in the 
byre ; but it is a delicious picture, as wholesome and 
sweet as a cow's breath. You heir the music of the milk 
playing in the pail; you feel the gentle, rural natural- 
ness of the whole scene. 

Of " Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale," it is not easy 
to speak in moderation, as assuredly it is impossible to 
look at it, and keep from bursting into tears and laughter 
all at once. Anything more saturated, more insufferably 
overflowing with the best fun and misery, with the 
oddest, homeliest humour and despair, we never before 
encountered. 

" Uncle Tom" is a small, old, dusky bull-dog, with 
bandy legs and broad chest, and an amazing look of a 
nigger. His eyes are crunched up in an ecstasy of woe, 
the crystal tears hailing down his dark and knobby 
cheeks, "which witness huge affliction;'' his mouth is 
open to the full, and one black stump is all we see of 
teeth ; his tongue, out to the utmost, quivering with 
agitation and panting, — a tongue, the delicate, moist 
pink of which, like the petal of some tropical flower, is in 
wonderful contrast to the cavern — the jaws of darkness — 
out of which it is flung. And what is all this for ? Is 
he in pain ? No. Is he afraid ? Not he ; that is a sen- 
sation unknown to Tom. He is plainly as full of pluck, 
as " game" as was ever Crib or Molyneux. He is in this 
state of utter woe, because he is about to be sold, and 
his wife, " Aunt Chloe," the desire of his old eyes, may 
be taken from him, the mere idea of which has put him 
into this transport, so that he is written all over with 
lamentation, utterly begrntten, and done for. It is this 
touching combination of immense affection and ugliness, 
which brings out the pathetic-comic effect instantly, and 
to the uttermost. We never saw anything like it except 
Mr. Robson's Medea. Why is it that we cannot but 



notce on art. 183 

laugh at this? It is no laughing matter with the honest 
and ugly and faithful old beast. 

Chloe, who is chained to Tom, is, with the trick of her 
sex, sinking her own grief in sorrow for his.- She is leaning 
fondly towards him, and looking up to him with a won- 
derful eye, anxious to comfort him, if she knew how. 
Examine the painting of that congested, affectionate 
organ, and you will see what true work is. And not less 
so the bricks which form the background ; all repre- 
sented with the utmost modesty and truth, not only of 
form and colour, but of texture. 



THE RANDOM SHOT. 

If any one wishes to know how finely, and to what fine 
issues, the painter's spirit and his own may be touched, 
how much of gentleness may be in power, how much of 
power in gentleness, let him peruse the " Random Shot" 
by Land seer. 

On the summit of some far remote Highland mountain, 
on the untrodden and azure-tinted snow, lies a dead or 
dying hind, its large brown velvety ears set off against 
trie pure, pearly, infinite sky, into whose cloudless depths 
the darkness of night is already being poured. The deep, 
unequal footsteps of the miserable mother are faintly 
traced in blood, her calf is stooping down, and searching 
for its comfortable and ever-ready drink, but finding 
none. Anything more exquisite than this long-legged, 
bewildered creature, standing there all forlorn, stupid and 
wild — hunger and weariness, fear and amazement, busy 
at its poor silly heart — we have never seen in painting. 
By the long shadows on the snow, the delicate green tint 
of the sky, the cold splendour on the mountain tops, and 
the- gloom in the corries, we know that day is fast going, 
and night with all her fears drawing on, and what is to 
become of that young desolate thing ? 

This is not a picture to be much spoken about ; it is 
too quick with tenderness, and reaches too nicely that 
point which just stops short of sadness ; words would 
only mar its pathetic touch. 



184 Iborae Subsedvae, 

Here is another by the same painter, which, though 
inferior and very different in subject, is not less admirable 
in treatment. It consists of the portraits of three sport- 
ing dogs. A retriever, with its sonsy and affectionate 
visage, holding gingerly in its mouth a living woodcock, 
whose bright and terror-stricken eye is painted to the 
life. In the centre is a keen thoroughgoing pointer, who 
has just found the scent among the turnips. This is 
perhaps the most masterly among the three, for colour 
and for expression. The last is a liver-coloured spaniel, 
panting over a plump pheasant, and looking to its invis- 
ible master for applause. The touch of genius is over 
them all, everywhere, from the rich eye of the retriever to 
the wasted turnip-leaves. Yet there is no mere clever- 
ness, no traces of handiwork ; you are not made to think 
of work at all, till you have got your fill of pleasure and 
surprise, and then you wonder what cunning brain, and 
eye, and finger could have got so much out of so little, 
and so common. 

We often hear of the decline of the Fine Arts in our 
time and country, but any age or nation might well be 
proud of having produced within fifty years, four such 
men as Wilkie, Turner, Etty, and Lanclseer. 

THE EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY. 

There is an immediateness and calm intensity, a certain 
simplicity and tragic tenderness, in this exquisite picture, 
which no one but Paul Delaroche has in our days reach- 
ed. You cannot escape its power, you cannot fail to be 
moved; it remains in your mind as a thing for ever. It 
is the last scene of that story we all have by heart, of 

" Her most gentle, most unfortunate.'' 

That beautiful, simple English girl, the young wife, who 
has just seen the headless body of her noble young hus- 
band carried past, is drawing to the close of her little life 
of love and study, of misery and wrong. She is partially 
undressed, her women having disrobed her. She is 
blindfolded, and is groping almost eagerly for the block ; 
groping as it were into eternity ; her mouth slightly open, 



IKotes on Bit. 185 

her face " steady and serene." Sir John Gage, the Con- 
stable of the Tower, is gently leading her by the left hand 
to the block, and gazing on her with a surprising com- 
passion and regard — a very noble head. Her women, 
their work over, are aside ; one fallen half-dead on the 
floor ; the other turning her back, her hands uplifted and 
wildly grasping the stone pillar, in utter astonishment and 
anguish. You cannot conceive what that concealed face 
must be like. We don't remember anything more terrible 
or more intense than this hgure. In the other corner 
stands the headsman, w r ith his axe ready, still, but not un- 
moved ; behind him is the coffin ; but the eye gazes first 
and remains last on that pale, doomed face, beautiful and 
innocent, bewildered and calm. Let our readers take 
down Hume, and read the story. The cold and impas- 
sive philosopher writes as if his heart were full. Her hus- 
band, Lord Guildford, asked to see her before their deaths. 
She answered, No ; that the tenderness of the parting 
would overcome the fortitude of both ; besides, she said, 
their separation would be but for a moment. It had been 
intended to execute the Lady Jane and Lord Guildford 
together on the same scaffold on Tower Hill ; but the 
Council, dreading the compassion of the people for their 
youth, beauty, innocence, and high birth, caused her to be 
beheaded within the verge of the Tower, after she had 
seen him from the window, and given him a token as he 
was led to execution. The conclusion by Hume is thus : 
— " After uttering these words, she caused herself to be 
disrobed by her women, and with a steady, serene coun- 
tenance submitted herself to the executioners." The en- 
graving, which may be seen at Mr. Hill's, is worthy of the 
picture and the subject. It is a marvel of delicate power, 
and is one of the very few modern engravings we would 
desire our friends to buy. 

NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU BE- 
FORE HIS ABDICATION. 

This is the first painting by Delaroche we have seen, 
though we have long been familiar with his works through 



186 Iborac Subsecivae. 

their engravings. He is every inch a master. You get 
from his work that strange and delightful shock which 
asserts at once his genius and power. You are not struck, 
but you get a shock of surprise, of awe, and of pleasure, 
which no man who once gets ever mistakes for anything 
else. This picture, of 

" Him— 

Who in our wonder and astonishment 
Has built himself a livelong monument," 

has this charm and power. You never before saw any- 
thing like it, you will never see anything like it again, and 
you will never forget it. It is no easy matter to describe 
what passes through one's mind on looking at such a bit 
of intense and deep genius. One feels more inclined in 
such a case to look, and recollect, to feel, and be grateful, 
than to speak. 

Napoleon is represented as alone — seated hurriedly and 
sideways upon a chair — one leg of which has trod upon a 
magnificent curtain, and is trailing it down to ruin. He 
is dressed in his immortal grey coat, his leather breeches, 
and his big riding boots, soiled with travel ; the shapely 
little feet, of which he was so proud, are drawn comfort- 
lessly in ; his hat is thrown on the ground. His attitude 
is that of the deepest dejection and abstraction ; his body 
is sunk, and his head seems to bear it down, with its bur- 
den of trouble. This is finely indicated by the deep trans- 
verse fold of his waistcoat ; one arm is across the back 
of the chair, the other on his knee, his plump hands lying 
idle ; his hair, that thin, black straight hair, looks wet, and 
lies wildly across his immense forehead. But the face is 
where the artist has set his highest impress, and the eyes 
are the wonder of his face. The mouth is firm as ever — 
beautiful and unimpassioned as an infant's ; the cheeks 
plump, the features expressive of weariness, but not dis- 
tressed ; the brow looming out from the dark hair, like 
something oppressively and supernaturally capacious ; 
and then the eyes ! his whole mind looking through them, 
— bodily distress, want of sleep, fear, doubt, shame, aston- 
ishment, anger, speculation, seeking rest but as yet find- 
ing it not; going overall possibilities, calm, confounded, 
but not confused. There is all this in the grey, serious, 



motes on Hrt. 187 

perplexed eyes ; we don't know that we ever saw any- 
thing at once so subtle, awful, and touching, as their 
dreary look. Your eyes begin soon to move your heart ; 
you pity and sympathize with him, and yet you know all 
he has done, the havoc he has made of everything man 
holds sacred, or God holds just ; you know how merciless 
he was and will be, how eaten up with ambition, how 
mischievous ; you know that after setting at defiance all 
mankind, and running riot in victory, he had two years 
before this set his face against the heavens, and, defying 
the elements, had found to his own, and to his country's 
tremendous cost, that none can " stand before J/z's cold." 
We know that he is fresh from the terrible three days at 
Leipsic, where he never was so amazing in his resources, 
and all that constitutes military genius ; we know that he 
has been driven from his place by the might and the 
wrath of the great German nation, and that he is as faith- 
less and dangerous as ever ; but we still feel for him. 
Our soul is " purged by terror and pity," which is the end 
of tragic art as well as of tragic writing, and will be found 
like it one of the " gravest, moralest, and most profitable" 
of all human works. This is the touch " that makes the 
whole world kin." 

This trouble in the eye — this looking into vacancy, and 
yet not being vacant — this irresolute and helpless look in 
one so resolute, so self-sustained, is to us one of the very 
highest results of that art which affects the mind through 
the eye. 

The picture, as a work of art, is remarkable for its sim- 
plicity of idea and treatment, the severity of its manner, 
and the gloomy awfulness everywhere breathing from it. 
It seems to gather darkness as you gaze at it ; the impe- 
rial eagles emblazoned on the wall are struggling through 
a sort of ruddy darkness produced by the deep shadow on 
the rich-coloured curtain. His sword is lying on a table, 
its hilt towards us. 

But what impressed us most, and what still impresses 
us is, that we have seen the man as he then was, as he 
then was looking, and thinking, feeling, and suffering. 
We started at first as if we were before him, rather than 
he before us, and that we would not like to have that 



188 Iborae Subsecivae. 

beautiful but dread countenance, and those unsearchable, 
penetrating cold eyes lifted up upon us. 

No man need ask himself after this, if Delaroche is a 
great artist ; but some of his other works display, if not 
more intensity, more variety of idea and expression. Their 
prevailing spirit is that of severe truthfulness, simplicity, 
and a kind of gloomy power — a certain awfulness, in its 
strict sense, not going up to sublimity perhaps, or forward 
into beauty, but lingering near them both. They are full 
of humanity, in its true sense ; what he feels he feels 
deeply, and it asserts its energy in every bit of his handi- 
work. 

It is remarkable how many of his best pictures are from 
English history, and how many are possessed by English- 
men. The following short sketch of his chief pictures 
may be interesting. His earliest works were on religious 
subjects ; they are now forgotten. The first which 
attracted attention was the picture of Joan of Arc in prison, 
examined by Cardinal Winchester ; this has been en- 
graved, and is very great — full of his peculiar gloom. Then 
followed Flora Macdonald succouring the Pretender ; the 
death of Queen Elizabeth, almost too intense and painful 
for pleasurable regard ; a scene at the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew ; Death of the English Princes in the 
Tower ; Richelieu on the Rhone, with Cinq Mars and De 
Thou as prisoners ; Death of Cardinal Mazarin ; Crom- 
well regarding the dead body of Charles I. This last is 
a truly great and impressive picture — we hardly know 
one more so, or more exactly suited for Art. The great 
Protector, with his well-known face, in whic.h ugliness and 
affection and power kept such strange company, is by 
himself in a dark room. And yet not by himself. The 
coffin in which Charles, his king, is lying at rest, having 
ceased from troubling, is before him, and he has lifted up 
the lid and is gazing on the dead king — calm, with the 
paleness and dignity of death — of such a death, upon that 
fine face. You look into the face of the living man ; you 
know what he is thinking of. Awe, regret, resolution. 
He knows the full extent of what has been done — of what 
he has done. He thinks, if the dead had not been false, 
anything else might have been forgiven ; if he had but done 






IFlotes on Brt. 189 

this, and not done that ; and his great human affections 
take their course, and he may wish it had been otherwise. 
But you know that having taken this gaze, and having let 
his mind go forth in its large issues, as was his way, he 
would again shut that lid, and shut his mind, and go away 
certain that it was right, that it was the only thing, and 
that he will abide by it to the end. It is no mean art that 
can put this into a few square inches of paper, or that can 
raise this out of any ordinary looker-on's brain. What a 
contrast to Napoleon's smooth, placid face and cold eyes, 
that rough visage, furrowed with sorrow and internal 
convulsions, and yet how much better, greater, worthier, 
the one than the other ! We have often wondered, if they 
had met a Liitzen, or at some of the wild work of that 
time, what they would have made of each other. We 
would lay the odds upon the Brewer's Son. The intellect 
might not be so immense, the self-possession not so 
absolute, but the nature, the whole man, would be more 
powerful, because more in the right and more in sympathy 
with mankind. He would never try an impossible thing ; 
he would seldom do a wrong thing, an outrage to human 
nature or its Author ; and for all that makes true great- 
ness and true courage, we would not compare the one 
with the other. But to return to our artist. There is St. 
Amelia praying, very beautiful ; Death of Duke of Guise 
at Blois ; Charles I. in the Guard-room, mocked by the. 
soldiers ; Lord Strafford going to execution, kneeling as 
he passes under the window of Laud's cell, whose out- 
stretched hands bless him. This is a great picture ; 
nothing is seen of Laud but the thin, passionate, implor- 
ing hands, and yet you know what they express, you know 
what sort of a face there will be in the darkness within. 
Strafford is very fine. 

There is a charming portrait of his wife as the angel 
Gabriel ; a St. Cecilia playing ; and a beautiful Holy 
Family, the Virgin, a portrait of his wife, and the child, a 
beautiful rosy creature, full of favour, with those deep, 
unfathomable, clear eyes, filled with infinity, such as you 
see in Raphael's Sistine Jesus. 



190 Iborae Subsecivae. 



NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS. 

Last year at this time we were all impressed, as we 
seldom are by anything of this sort, by Delaroche's 
picture of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. We are none of 
us likely to forget the feeling then experienced of being 
admitted into that dread presence, and looking, not only 
at the bodily form, but into the very soul of that great and 
miserable man. We may now get a different and yet a 
similar impression, from what we cannot but regard as a 
nobler and more touching work — something deeper and 
finer still. Those who knew what we thought of the first, 
will understand how much praise of the second is involved 
in our saying this. Last year we saw before us the 
spectacle of power, perhaps the most intense and enor- 
mous ever committed by the Divine Disposer to one of 
his creatures, in ruins, having all but played the game 
out. It was the setting sun of a day of astonishment, 
brightness, and tempest, lightning and thunder ; but the 
great orb was sinking in disastrous storm and gloom — 
going down never to rise again. In this new picture, we 
have the rising sun climbing up its young morning sky ; 
the hours of glory, of havoc, and of shame, are before him, 
and us. The innocent brightness of his new-born day is 
not yet gone ; it will soon go. 

Nothing can be simpler, or more everyday-like, than 
the body of the picture. A steady, painstaking mule, 
with his shoulder to the steep, his head well down, his 
nostrils dilated, his eye full of stress and courage, his last 
hind leg straining forward himself and his burden, his 
shaggy legs clotted with the sweat-ice-drops, the weather- 
worn harness painted as like as it can look, his ruffled and 
heated hide, the leash of thongs, which, dangling, has 
often amused and tickled his old and hungry sides, swing- 
ing forward in the gusty wind — his whole heart and soul 
in his work : he is led by his old master, with his homely, 
hardy, and honest face, his sinewy alpenstock in his hand. 
Far back on the mule sits Napoleon, consulting his own 
ease alone, not sparing man or beast — he was not given 
to spare man or beast — his muscles relaxed, his lean 



IFlotes on art. 191 

shapely leg instinctively gripping the saddle, his small 
handsome foot resting idly in the stirrup, the old useless 
knotted bridle lying on the mule's neck, his grey coat 
buttoned high up, and blown forward by the wind, his 
right hand in his inner coat, his slight graceful chest well 
up, and, above it, his face ! and, above it, that well-known 
hat, firmly held by the prodigious head within, the powdery 
snow grizzling its rim. Ay, that face ! look at it ; let its 
vague, proud, melancholy gaze, not at you, or at anything, 
but into the immense future, take possession of your mind. 
He is turning the north side of the Alps ; he is about 
descending into Italy; and what of that?— we all know 
now what of that, and do not know yet all of it. We 
were then, such of us as may have been born, as uncon- 
scious of what was before us and him, as that patient 
mule or his simple master. Look at the face narrowly : 
it is thin ; the cheeks sunken ; the chin exquisite, with its 
sweet dimple ; the mouth gentle, and firm, and sensitive, 
but still as death, not thinking of words or speech, but 
merely letting the difficult air of that Alpine region in 
and out. That same mouth which was to ignore the word 
impossible and call it a beast, and to know it, and be 
beaten by it in the end ; that thin, delicate, straight nose 
leading you to the eyes, with their pencilled and well- 
pronounced brows ; there is the shadow of youth, and of 
indifferent health, under and around these eyes, giving to 
their power and meaning a singular charm — they are the 
wonder of the picture. He is looking seriously, but 
blankly, far on and up, seeing nothing outwardly, the 
mind's eye seeing — who can tell what ? His cheek is pale 
with the longing of greatness. The young and mighty 
spirit within is awakening, and hardly knows itself and its 
visions, but it looks out clearly and firmly, though with a 
sort of vague sadness, into its appointed field. 

Every one must be struck with this look of sorrow ; a 
certain startled air of surprise, of hope, and of fear ; his 
mind plays deeply with the future that is far off, — besides 
doing anything but play with his work to-morrow, that, as 
we shall soon hear, was earnest enough, as Marengo can 
tell. Such is the natural impression, such the feelings, 
this picture made and awakened in our minds through 



192 Iborae Subsectvae. 

our eyes. It has a certain plain truth and immediateness 
of its own, which leads to the idea of all that followed ; 
and, lest this effect be said to be ours, not the picture's, 
we would ask any man to try and bring such an idea, or 
indeed any idea, into the head of any one looking at 
David's absurd piece of horsemanship, called Crossing the 
Alps. And what is that idea ? Everything ripening for 
that harvest, he is putting his sickle forth to reap. France, 
terrified and bleeding, and half free, getting sight of its 
future king — rousing itself and gathering itself up to act. 
Italy, Austria, and the drowsy, rotten, bewildered king- 
doms, turning uneasily in their sleep, and awakening, 
some of them never again to rest ; even the utmost north 
to bear witness of him, and take terrible vengeance for 
his wrongs. Egypt has already been filled with the glory, 
the execration, and disgrace of his name ; and that Holy 
Land, the theatre of the unspeakable wonders and good- 
ness of the. Prince of Peace, that too has seen him, and 
has cast him out, by the hearty courage and hatred of an 
English captain and his sailors. England also is to play 
a part ; to annihilate his fleets, beat him and his best 
marshals wherever she meets them, and finish him utterly 
at. last. 

And what changes — as strange, though more hidden — 
in character, in affection, in moral worth, are to take place 
in that beautiful and spiritual countenance, in that soul of 
which it is the image ; infinite pride, and glory, and guilt, 
working their fell will upon him — his being (that most 
dreadful of all calamities to a creature like man) left alto- 
gether to himself. How the wild, fierce courage of Lodi 
and Arcole is to waste away into the amazing meanness 
of " Sau-oe qui fietif'—thz Regent's letter, and the pitiful 
bullying on board the Bellerophon. Before him lie his 
victories, his mighty civil plans, his code of laws, his end- 
less activity, his prodigious aims, even his medals so beau- 
tiful, so ridiculous, so full of lies — one of them telling its 
own shame, having on one side Hercules strangling the 
monster of the sea (England), and on the other the words 
" Struck at London ! !" his perfidy and cruelty ; the mur- 
dered young D'Enghien ; the poisoned soldiers at Jaffa. 
The red field of Leipsic rises stark on our sight, where the 



mctca on Hrt. 193 

great German people, that honest and right-hearted but 
slow race, fell and rose again, never again to fall so low, 
and, by and by, through the same vital energy, it may be 
soon, to rise higher than many think, when, rousing them- 
selves like a strong man after sleep, they shall drive their 
enemies, be they kings or priests, as old Hermann and his 
Teuts chased the Roman Eagles across the Rhine, and 
returning, lift up like them their beer horns in peace; this 
has always seemed to us the great moral lesson to the 
world of Napoleon's career. But our readers are impa- 
tient ; they have, perhaps, parted company with us long 
ago. One thing they will agree with us in, that this pic- 
ture raises up the mind of the looker ; fills his memory 
with living forms ; breathes the breath of life and of human 
nature into the eventful past, and projects the mind for- 
ward upon the still greater future ; deepens impressions, 
and writes " Vanity of vanity, all is vanity," on such mad 
ambition — 

" The glories of our earthly state _ 
Are shadows, not substantial things." 

But to return to our picture. Behind Napoleon is another 
guide, leading the horse of a soldier, muffled up, and 
battling with the keen mountain wind. This closes the 
scene ; around and above are the everlasting Alps, looking 
as they did when Hannibal passed nearly 3000 years before, 
and as they will do thousands of years hence. They bear 
down upon the eye in a formidable way, as if frowning at 
the intruder on their snows and silence, and as if crowding 
down to withstand his steps. Under is the spotless snow, 
with some bits of ice, troubling the hoofs of the mule. 
This completes the picture, which, as we have already said, 
is homely and simple in its body, in all that first meets the 
eye, though informed throughout with the finest phantasy 
when the mind rests upon it and reaches its soul. 

Every one must be struck with the personal beauty of 
Napoleon as represented here. He was in his 31st year; 
had been four years married to Josephine — the happiest 
years of his life ; he had just come from Egypt, having 
been hunted across the Mediterranean by Nelson. His 
peasant guide, who succeeded to the old man, and who 
brought him within sight of Italy, described him as "a 



194 Iborae Subsecivae. 

very dark man, and with an eye which, though affable, he 
did not like to encounter." We can believe him ; a 
single look of that eye, or a word from that mouth, cheer- 
ed and set in motion the wearied army as they toiled up 
" the Valley of Desolation ;" and if they stuck fast in 
despair, the Consul had the drums beat, and trumpets 
sounded, as for the charge. This never failed. He 
knew his men. 

This picture was conceived by Delaroche last year, on 
the spot where the scene is laid, and painted very soon 
after. He was at Nice for his health, and had for his 
guide up the St. Bernard, the son of the man leading the 
mule, who told him many things about Napoleon, and how 
he looked. As regards colour, it is the best of Dela- 
roche's pictures we have seen ; it is a curious study to mark 
how little, and how much, the young, thin, spiritual face 
differs from that of last year's picture. 

There is something to our minds, not unseasonable in 
directing our thoughts to such a spectacle of mere human 
greatness, at this (Christmas) sacred time. So much 
mischief, crime, and misery, and yet so much power, 
intelligence, progress, and a certain dreadful usefulness in 
the career of such a man. What a contrast to His life, 
who entered our world 1850 years ago, and whose birth 
was heralded by the angel song, "Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men ;" whose 
religion and example, and continual living influence, has 
kept this strange world of ours from being tenfold more 
wicked and miserable than it is. We would conclude with 
, the words of the poet of /// Memoriam — 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring happy bells across the snow, 

The year is going, let him go ; 
Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

" Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler forms of life, 
With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

" Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ring in the common love of good, 



Botes on Brt. 195 

" Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace." 

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

If this picture in any degree fulfil its object, if we are 
impressed and moved by it, then it is not matter for 
words, it partakes of the unspeakableness of its subject. 
If it fall short of this, it fails utterly, and is not worth 
any words but those of displeasure, for nothing- is more 
worthless, nothing is more truly profane, and few things 
are more common, than the attempt to represent sacred 
ideas by a man who is himself profane, and incapable of 
impressing others. For it is as unseemly, and in the 
true sense as profane, for a painter to paint such subjects 
if he do not feel them, as it is for a man to preach the 
great truths of our most holy faith, being himself an un- 
believer, or at the best a Gallio, in both cases working 
merely for effect, or to bring in wages. 

This picture is not liable to any such rebuke. What- 
ever may be thought of its central idea and of its expres- 
sion, no one can doubt — no one can escape coming 
under — its power, its true sacredness. Watch the people 
studying it; listen, not to their words, but to their 
silence ; they are all as if performing an act of worship, 
or at least of devout reverence. The meaning of the 
picture reaches you at once : that lonely, serious, sorrow- 
ful, majestic countenance and form ; those wonderful 
listening eyes, so full of concern, of compassion — 
"acquainted with grief;" the attitude of anxious heark- 
ening, as if " waiting to be gracious." This idea rules 
the whole. We all feel who He is, and what He is de- 
siring; and we feel, perhaps it may be in a way never 
felt before, the divine depth of .the words, " Behold, I 
stand at the door and knock ; if any man open unto me, 
I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with 
me ;" and we see that though He is a king, and is 
" travelling in the greatness of his strength, mighty to 
save," He cannot open the door — it must open from 
within — He can only stand and knock, 



196 Iborae Subsecivae. 

We confess that, with this thought filling our mind, 
we care little for the beautiful and ingenious symbols 
with which the painter has enriched his work ; that 
garden run wild, that Paradise Lost, with the cold star- 
light indicating and concealing its ruin — all things waste, 
the light from the lantern falling on the apple (a wonder- 
ful bit of painting) — " the fruit of that forbidden tree ;" 
the darnel or tares choking up the door, and the 
gentle but inveterate ivy grasping it to the lintel ; the 
Jewish and the Gentile emblems clasped together across 
his breast ; the crown, at once royal and of thorns set 
with blood-red carbuncles ; and many other emblems full 
of subtle spiritual meaning. We confess to rather wish- 
ing the first impression had been left alone. 

The faults of the picture as a work of art are, like its 
virtues, those of its school — imitation is sometimes mis- 
taken for representation. There is a want of the unity, 
breadth, and spaciousness of nature about the land- 
scape, as if the painter had looked with one eye shut, 
and thus lost the stereoscopic effect of reality — the soli- 
darity of binocular vision ; this gives a displeasing flatness. 
It is too full of astonishing bits, as if it had been looked 
at, as well as painted, piece-meal. With regard to the 
face of our Saviour, this is hardly a subject for criticism, — 
as we have said, it is full of majesty and tenderness and 
meaning ; but we have never yet seen any image of that 
face so expressive as not to make us wish that it had been 
left alone to the heart and imagination of each for him- 
self. In the " Entombment," by Titian, one of the three 
or four greatest pictures in the world, the face of the dead 
Saviour is in shadow, as if the painter preferred leaving 
it thus, to making it more definite ; as if he relied on the 
idea — on the spiritual image — rising up of itself ; as if he 
dared not be definite ; thus showing at once his greatness 
and modesty by acknowledging that there is " that within 
which passeth show." 

RIZPAH. 

Take one of Turner's sketches in his Liber Studiorum, 
a book which, for truth and power, and the very highest 



motes on art 19? 

imaginative tfts, must be compared, not with any other 
book of prints, but with such word-pictures as you find in 
Dante, in Cowper, in Wordsworth, or in Milton. It is a 
dark foreground filled with gloom, savage and wild in its 
structure ; a few grim heavy trees deepen the gloom : in 
the centre, and going out into the illimitable sky, is a 
brief, irregular bit of the purest radiance, luminous, but 
far off. There is a strange meaning about the place; it 
is " not uninformed with phantasy, and looks that threat- 
en the profane." You look more keenly into it. In the 
centre of the foreground sits a woman, her face hidden, 
her whole form settled down as by some deep sorrow ; 
she holds up, but with her face averted, a flaming torch ; 
behind, and around her, lie stretched out seven bodies as of 
men, half-naked, and dimly indicating far-gone decay ; at 
their feet are what seem like crowns. There is a lion seen 
with extended tail slinking off, and a bittern has just sprung 
up in the corner from a reedy pool. The waning moon is 
lying as if fainting in the grey heavens. The harvest 
sheaves stand near at hand, against the sky. The picture 
deepens in its gloom. The torch gives more of its fitful 
light as you steadily gaze. What is all this ? These are 
two sons and five grandsons of Saul, who " fell all seven 
together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in 
the beginning of barley harvest." And she who sits there 
solitary is " Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, who took sack- 
cloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the begin- 
ning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of 
heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on 
them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night." For 
five months did this desolate mother watch by the bodies 
of her sons ! She is at her ceaseless work, morn, noon, 
and night incessantly. How your heart now fills, as well 
as your eyes ! How you realize the idea ! What a sacred 
significance it gives to the place, and receives from it ! 
What thoughts it awakens! Saul and his miserable 
story, David and his lamentation, the mountains of Gil- 
boa, the streets of Askelon. The king of beasts slinking 
off once more, hungry, angry, and afraid — finding her 
still there. The barley sheaves, indicating by a touch of 
wonderful genius, that it is nearer the beginning than the 



198 Ifoorae Subsecfvae. 

end of her time, so that we project our sympathy forward 
upon the future months. No one but a great artist would 
have thought of this. And that unfailing, forlorn woman, 
what love ! That only love which He whose name and 
nature it has honoured by admitting to be nearest, though 
at an infinite distance from His own. " Can a woman 
forget ? — Yea, she may forget." Here we have a scene 
in itself impressive, and truthfully rendered, enriched, and 
sanctified by a subject of the highest dignity, and deepest 
tenderness, and in perfect harmony with it. 

Many may say we bring out much that is not in it. 
This maybe partly true, and is rather to that extent an en- 
hancement of its worth. But the real truth is, that there 
is all this in it, if it be but sought for and received in 
simplicity and reverence. The materials for imagination 
are there ; let the spectator apprehend them in the like 
spirit, and he will feel all, and more than we have de- 
scribed. Let a man try to bring anything out of some 
of the many landscapes we see in our Exhibitions, and he 
may be strong and willing, but it will prove too hard for 
him ; it is true here as everywhere else — ex nihilo nihil 
fit — ex parvo, ftarvum — ex /also, fahum — ex magno, 
magnum — ex Deo, Optimo, Maximo, maximum, opti- 
mu?n, divinum. 

THE GLEN OF THE ENTERKIN. 

This is a representation by Mr. Harvey of a deep, up- 
land valley ; its truthfulness is so absolute, that the ge- 
ologist could tell from it what formation was under that 
grass. The store-farmer could say how many sheep it 
could feed, and what breed those are which are busy 
nibbling on that sunny slope. The botanist could tell 
not only that that is a fern, but that it is the Aspidiu7n 
filix-mas ; and the naturalist knows that that water- 
wagtail on that stone is the Motacilla Yarrelli. To 
all this, the painter has added his own thoughts and 
feelings when he saw and when he painted this consum- 
mate picture. It is his idea of the place, and, like all 
realized ideals, it has first crept into his study of imagina- 
tion, before it comes into the eye and prospect of his soul 



notes on Hrt, 199 

or of ours. We feel the spirit of the place, its gentleness, 
its unspeakable seclusion. The one shepherd with his 
dog far up on the hillside, grey and steadfast as any 
stone, adding the element of human solitude, which in- 
tensifies the rest. It were worth one's while to go alone 
to that glen to feel its beauty, and to know something of 
what is meant by the "sleep that is among the lonely 
hills," and to feel, moreover, how much more beautiful, 
how much more full of life the picture is than the reality, 
unless indeed we have the seeing eye, the understanding 
heart, and then we may make a picture to ourselves. 

DAWN — LUTHER IN THE CONVENT 
LIBRARY AT ERFURT. 

This is, w T e think, Mr. Paton's best work. We do not 
say his greatest, for that may be held to include quantity 
of genius as well as quality. He has done other things 
as full of imagination, and more full of fancy ; but there 
is a seriousness and depth, a moral and spiritual meaning 
and worth about this which he has never before shown, 
and which fully deserve the word best. 

The picture requires no explanation. It is Luther, the 
young monk of four-and-twenty, in the Library of the 
Convent of Erfurt. He is at his desk, leaning almost 
wildly forward, one knee on the seat — its foot has drop- 
ped the rude and worn sandal — the other foot on the 
floor, as it were pressing him forward. He is gazing 
into the open pages of a huge Vulgate — we see it is the 
early chapters of the Romans. A bit of broken chain in- 
dicates that the Bible was once chained— to be read, but 
not possessed — it is now free, and his own. His right 
hand is eagerly, passionately drawing the volume close 
to him. His face is emaciated to painfulness : you see 
the traces of a sleepless night — the mind sleepless, and 
worse, seeking rest, and as yet finding none, but about to 
find it — and this takes away from what might otherwise 
be a plus of pain. Next moment he will come upon — or 
it on him — the light from heaven, shining out from the 
words, " Therefore being justified by faith we have peace 



200 Iborae Subaecivac. 

with God ;" and in intimation of this, His dawn, the 
sweet, pearly light of morning - , shining in at the now 
open lattice, is reflected from the page upon his keen 
anxious face — " faint yet pursuing." If you look steadily 
into that face, you will see that the bones of the mighty 
Reformer's face, so well known to us, are all there, and 
need but good food and sleep, and the open air, and 
peace of mind, and the joy of victorious faith and work, 
to fill it up and make it plump, giving it that look of en- 
ergy in repose, of enough and to spare, of masculine pow- 
er, which that broad, massive, but soft and kindly visage, 
wears written all over it ; and the slightly upturned head, 
the clear, open, deep eyes, and that rich chin and neck, 
" dewlapped like a Thessalian bull." 

And we know that all this misery, and examination, and 
wasting are true. We know that when his friend Alexis 
was struck down dead by lightning at his side as they 
walked together, he also was struck down in his mind ; 
and in the words of Principal Tulloch in his admirable 
sketch, he carried out his resolve in a way curiously and 
entirely his own — " One evening he invites some of his 
fellow-students to supper, gives them of his best cheer, 
music and jest enliven the company, and the entertain- 
ment closes with a burst of merriment. The same night 
there is a solitary knock at the door of the Augustinian 
Convent, and two volumes alone of all his books in his 
hand — Plautus and Virgil — Luther passes under its por- 
tal." Three long, dreary years he has been there; doing 
all sorts of servile work — sweeping the floors, begging in 
the streets with his wallet — " Saccum per nackum" — for 
food and dainties to his lazy brethren. Sometimes four 
days without meat or drink — hiding himself for a week 
with his books in his cell, where, when broken in upon, he 
is found lying cold and senseless on the floor ; and all 
this bodily wretchedness, struggle, and unrest but a mate- 
rial type of the mental agony within trying to work out 
his own salvation with all sorts of " fear and trembling." 
And now the natural dawn has found him still at his book, 
and is pouring its " innocent brightness" everywhere, and 
its fresh airs are stirring the white blossoms of the con- 
volvulus outside, and making them flutter and look in like 



notes on art. 201 

doves — the clew of their youth and of the morning glister- 
ing, if looked for. And this time it has found him with 
his morn beginning too — the clear shining after the rain, 
the night far past, the day at hand ; he has " cast off the 
works of darkness, and put on the armour of light." The 
Sun of Righteousness is about to arise upon him. Hence- 
forth you know well what he is to become and do — a child 
of the light, he walks abroad like one, and at liberty he 
goes forth upon his work, rejoicing like a strong man to 
run his race. That great human spirit finds rest and a 
resting-place — has got that fulcrum on which, with his 
strong heart and his lever, he is to move a world. That 
warm, urgent, tender, impetuous human heart is to be 
satisfied with the fellowship of his kind, and with the love 
of his Catherine — " his heart-loved housewife and sow- 
marketress, and whatever more she may be" — and to run 
over in babble (as who ever else did ?) to his " Johnny," 
his " Philip and his Joe," or overflow with tears as he 
looks on his "darling Lena" in her coffin, saying. " How 
strange it is to know so surely that she is at peace and 
happy, and yet for me to be so sad." 

And now that this dominant, central idea — which is 
the heart and soul, the motive power of the piece — is 
taken in and moves you, examine the rest — the great 
Vulgate and St. Augustine De Civitate Dei, and Thomas 
Aquinas, and the other old fellows, old and strong, lying 
all about, as if taken up and thrown down in restless 
search, how wonderfully they are painted ! or rather, 
how wonderfully you never think of them as painted ! 
and yet they are not merely imitated — you don't mistake 
them for actual books, they are the realized ideas of 
books. And that sacred, unspeakable scene, dim, yet 
unmistakable, looking out upon you from the back of his 
desk — the Agony of the Garden — carved and partly 
coloured and gilt; look at it— that is religious painting. 
Our Saviour on his knees " praying more earnestly" — the 
sleepers lying around — the mystic, heavy, sombre olive- 
trees, shutting out the light of heaven, and letting the 
lanterns of those " with swords and staves" gleam among 
their stems ; him who was a thief, crouching, stealing on 
with his bag and his crew, and the curse heavy upon him 



202 Iborae Subsecivae. 

—all this is in it, and all subordinate, and yet done to 
the quick, as if a young- Albert Durer or Van Eyck had 
had his knife in the wood, and his soul at his knife. 
Then, on the plastered wall behind the young monk is an 
oval portrait of Alexander the Sixth, the tremendous 
Borgia, that prodigy of crime and power — his face, what 
a contrast to the wasted boy's beneath ! he is fat and 
flourishing, rosy and full of blood and of the pride of life, 
insolent and at his ease ; Luther like a young branch all 
but withered in the leaves of his spring — the Vicar of God 
spreading like a green bay tree. He is holding up his 
two first fingers in the Apostolic benediction, with a 
something between a scowl and a leer — all this rendered, 
and yet nothing overdone. This portrait hangs on a rude 
drawing of the Crucifixion, as if by a young and adoring 
hand, full of feeling and with a touching uncertainty in the 
lines, as if the hand that traced it was unaccustomed and 
trembling; it conceals our Saviour's face. As we have 
said, the lattice has been opened, and the breath of the 
morning is flowing into the dark, stifling room. The 
night lamp has gone out, paling its ineffectual fires, and 
its reek is curling up and down, and away. This, as a 
piece of handiwork, is wonderful. When you look nar- 
rowly into the picture, you see a chrysalis in the gloom, 
just opening its case, ready when struck by the light and 
heat to expand and fly. The sunlight throws across 
towards Borgia the rich blooms of the stained glass, the 
light made gloriously false in passing through its disturb- 
ing medium ; while the pure, white light of heaven passes 
straight down upon the Word of God, and shines up into 
the face of the young reader. 

Such is a mere notion of this excellent picture ; it is 
painted throughout with amazing precision, delicacy, 
sweetness, and strength, in perfect diapason from first to 
last, everything subordinate to the one master note. 
Every one will be surprised, and some may be shocked, 
at the face, and hands, and look of Luther, but let them 
remember where he is, and w r hat he has been and is 
doing and suffering. This amount of pain gives a 
strange and true relish, if it is taken up and overpowered 
and transfigured into its opposite by our knowledge that 



motes on Brt. £03 

it was to be " but for a moment," and then the " far 
more exceeding-" victory and joy. 

BEAUTY, ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE. 

We are not now going- to try our 'prentice hand upon a 
new theory of Beauty, after so many masters have failed ; 
but we cannot help thinking that the dispute would be at 
an end if it were but allowed at once, that there are two 
kinds of beauty, that there is a material and necessary 
element of beauty, and another which is contingent and 
relative — a natural and a spiritual delightfulness to and 
through the eye ; and that sometimes we see both to- 
gether, as in the face and eyes of a beautiful and beloved 
woman ; and moreover, that there is no more reason for 
denying either the sense or the emotion of beauty, be- 
cause everybody does not agree about the kind or 
measure of either of these qualities in all objects, than 
there is for affirming that there is no such thing 
as veracity or natural affection, because the Spartans 
commended lying, and the Cretians practised it, or 
the New Zealanders the eating of one's grandmother. 
Why should the eye, the noblest, the amplest, the 
most informing of all our senses, be deprived of its 
own special delight ? The light is sweet, and it is a 
pleasant thing for the eye to behold the sun ; and why, 
when the ear has sound for informing, and music for de- 
light — when there is smell and odour, taste and flavour, 
and even the touch has its sense of pleasant smoothness 
and softness — why should there not be in the eye a 
pleasure born and dying with the sights it sees? it is like 
the infinite loving-kindness of Him who made the trees 
of the garden pleasant to the eye as well as good for 
f >od. We say nothing here of Relative or Associative 
IJjauty, — this has never been doubted either in its 
essence or its value. It is as much larger in its range, 
as much nobler in its meaning and uses, as the heavens 
are higher than the earth, or as the soul transcends the 
body. This, too, gives back to material beauty more 
than it received : it was after man was made, that God 
saw, and, behold, everything was very good. 



204 Iborae Subsccirae. 

Our readers may perhaps think we make too much of 
imagination as an essential element — as the essential ele- 
ment — in Art. With our views of its function and its per- 
vading influence in all the ideal arts, we can give it no 
other place. A man can no more be a poet or painter in 
the spiritual and only true sense without imagination, 
than an animal can be a bird without wings ; and as, 
other things being equal, that bird can be longest on 
the wing and has the greatest range of flight which 
has the strongest pinions, so that painter is likely to 
have the farthest and keenest vision of all that is within 
the scope of his art, and the surest and most ample 
faculty of making known to others what he himself 
has seen, whose imagination is at once the most strong 
and quick. At the same time, if it be true that the 
body without the spirit is dead, so it is equally true 
that the spirit without the body is vain, ineffectual, fruit- 
less. Imagination alone can no more make a painter or 
a poet than wings can constitute a bird. Each must 
have a body. Unfortunately, in painting we have more 
than enough of body without spirit. Correct drawing, 
wonderful imitative powers, cleverness, adaptiveness, great 
facility and dexterity of hand, much largeness of quota- 
tion, and many material and mechanical qualities, all 
go to form an amusing, and, it may be, useful spectacle, 
but not a true picture. We have also, but not so 
often, the reverse of all this, — the vision without the 
faculty, the soul without the body, great thoughts without 
the power to embody them in intelligible forms. He, and 
he alone, is a great painter, and an heir of time, who 
combines both. He must have observation, — humble, 
loving, unerring, unwearied ; this is the material out 
of which a painter, like a poet, feeds his genius, and 
" makes grow his wings." There must be perception and 
conception, both vigorous, quick, and true : you must have 
these two primary qualities, the one first, the other last, 
in every great painter. Give him good sense and a good 
memory, it will be all the better for him and for us. As 
for principles of drawing and perspective, they are not 
essential. A man who paints according to a principle is 
sure to paint ill ; he may apply his principles after his 
work is done, if he has a philosophic as well as an ideal turn. 



*'©b. I'm Wat, mat." 205 



"OH, I'M WAT, WAT." 



The father of the Rev. Mr. Steven of Largs, was the son of a farm- 
er^ who lived next farm to Mossgiel. When a boy of eight, he found 
"Robbie" who was a great friend of his, and of all the children, en- 
gaged digging a large trench in afield, Gilbert, his brother, with hint. 
The boy pausing on the edge of the trench, and looking down upon 
Burns, said, " Robbie, what's that ye' re doin* .'" " Hoivkit? a muckle 
hole, 1'ammic." "'What for?" " To bury the Deil in, Tamntie /" 
{one can fancy ho70 those eyes would glow.) ' A ' but, Robbie," said the 
logical Tam/nic,' 1, hoo' reyeto get him in?" " Ay," said Burns, "that's 
it, hoo are we to get hint in /*' and went oft into shouts of laughter ; 
and every now and then during that summer day shouts would come 
from that hole, as the idea came over him. If one coitld only have 
daguerrcotyped his day's fancies ! 

" WHAT is love, Mary?" said Seventeen to Thirteen, 
who was busy with her English lessons. 

" Love ! what do you mean, John ?" 

" I mean, what's love ?" 

" Love's just love, I suppose." 

(Yes, Mary, you are right to keep the concrete ; analysis 
kills love as well as other things. I once asked a useful- 
information young lady what her mother was. " Oh, 
mamma's a biped!" I turned in dismay to her younger 
sister, and said, " What do you say ?" " Oh, my mother's 
just my mother.") 

" But what part of speech is it ?" 

" It's a substantive or a verb." (Young Home Tooke 
didn't ask her if it was an active or passive, an irregular 
or defective verb ; an inceptive, as calesco, I grow warm, 
or dulcesco, I grow sweet ; a frequentative or a desidera- 
tiye, as nupturio, I desire to marry.) 

" i think it is a verb," said John, who was deep in 
other diversions besides those of Purley; "and I think it 
must have been originally the Perfect of Live, like thrive, 
throve, strive, strove." 

" Capital, John!" suddenly growled Uncle Oldbuck. who 



206 Iborae Subeecirae. 

was supposed to be asleep in his arm-chair by the fireside, 
and who snubbed and supported the entire household. 
" It was that originally, and it will be our own faults, 
children, if it is not that at last, as well as, ay, and more 
than at first. What does Richardson say, John? read 
him out." John reads — 

LOVE, v. s. To prefer, to desire, as an 

-less. object of possession or enjoy- 

-ly, ad. av. ment ; to delight in, to be 

-lily. pleased or gratified with, to 

-liness. take pleasure or gratification 

-er. in, delight in. 

-1NG. Love, the s. is app. emph. to 

-ingly. the passion between the sexes. 

-ingness. Lover is, by old writers, app. 

-able.* as/riend — by male to male. 

-some.** Love is much used— pref. 

-ERED.t *Wiclif. ** Chaucer. iShak. 

Love-locks, — locks (of hair) to set off the 
beauty ; the loveliness. 

A. S. Luf-ian ; D. Lie-vcn; Ger. -ben, amare, 
diligere. Wach. derives from lieb bonum, be- 
cause every one desires that which is good ; lieb, 
it is more probable, is from lieb-en, grateful, and 
therefore good. It may at least admit a conjec- 
ture that A. S. Lu Han, to love, has a reason for 
its application similar to that of L. Di-ligere 
(legere,to gather), to take up or out (of a number), 
to choose, sc. one in preference to another, to 
prefer: and that it is formed upon A. S. Hlif- 
ian : to lift or take up, to pick up, to select, to 
prefer. Be- Over- Un- 

Uncle impatiently. — " Stuff ! ' grateful ! ' ' pick up ! ' 
stuff ! These word-mongers know nothing about it. 
Live, love ; that is it, the perfect of live." * 

After this, Uncle sent the cousins to their beds. John's 
mother was in hers, never to rise from it agrain. She was 



* They are strange beings, these lexicographers. Richardson, for 
instance, under the word snail, gives this quotation from Beaumont and 
Fletcher's Wit at Several Weapons^ 

" Oh, Master Pompey ! how is't, man ? 
Clown — Snails, I'm almost starved with love and cold, and 
one thing or other." 

Any one else knows of course that it is " 's nails" — the contraction of the 
old oath or interjection — Cod's nails. 




" HE FELL ASLEEl' WATCHING IT." — Page 20J, 



" ©b, I'm Wat, Mat/' 207 

a widow, and Mary was her husband's niece. The house 
quiet, Uncle sat down in his chair, put his feet on the fen- 
der, and watched the dying fire ; it had a rich central 
glow, but no flame, and no smoke, it was flashing up fit- 
fully, and bit by bit falling in. He fell asleep watching 
it, and when he slept, he dreamed. He was young ; he 
was seventeen, he was prowling about the head of North 
St. David Street, keeping his eye on a certain door, — we 
call them common stairs in Scotland. He was waiting 
for Mr. White's famous English class for girls coming 
out. Presently out rushed four or five girls, wild and 
laughing ; then came one, bounding like a roe ! 

11 Such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power !" 

She was surrounded by the rest, and away they went 
laughing, she making them always laugh the more. Seven- 
teen followed at a safe distance, studying her small, firm, 
downright heel. The girls dropped off one by one, and 
she was away home by herself, swift and reserved. He, 
impostor as he was, disappeared through Jamaica Street, 
to reappear and meet her, walking as if on urgent busi- 
ness, and getting a cordial and careless nod. This beauti- 
ful girl of thirteen was afterwards the mother of our 
Mary, and died in giving her birth. She was Uncle Old- 
buck's first and only sweetheart ; and here was he, the only 
help our young Home Tooke, and his mother and Mary 
had. Uncle awoke, the fire dead, and the room cold. 
He found himself repeating Lady John Scott's lines — 

" W r hen thou art near me, 
Sorrow seems to fly, 
And then I think, as well I may, 
That on this earth there is no one 
More blest than I. 

But when thou leav'st me, 

Doubts and fears arise, \ 
And darkness reigns, \ 

Where all before was light. 
The sunshine of my soul 

Is in those eyes, 
And when they leave me 

All the world is night. 



208 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

But when thou art near me, 

Sorrow seems to fly, 
And then I feel, as well I may, 
That on this earth there dwells not one 

So blest as I."* 

Then taking - down Chambers s Scottish Songs, he read 
aloud : — 

" O, I'm wat, wat, 

O, I'm wat and weary ; 
Yet fain wad I rise and rin, 

If I thocht I would meet my dearie. 
Aye waukin', O ! 

Waukin' aye, and weary; 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinkin' o' my dearie. 

Simmer's a pleasant time, 

Flowers o' every colour ; 
The water rins ower the heugh, 

And I long for my true lover. 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I wauk I'm eerie, 
Sleep I can get nane, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie. 

Lanely nicht comes on, 

A 1 the lave are sleepin' ; 
I think on my true love, 

And blear my een wi' greetin'. 

Feather beds are saft — 

Pentit rooms are bonnie ; 
But ae kiss o' my dear love 

Better's far than ony. 

O for Friday nicht ! 

Friday at the gloamin' ; 
O for Friday nicht — ■ 

Friday's lang o' comin' !" 

This love-song, which Mr. Chambers gives from recita- 
tion, is, thinks Uncle to himself, all but perfect ; Burns, 
who in almost every instance, not only adorned, but 
transformed and purified whatever of the old he touched, 
breathing into it his own tenderness and strength, fails here, 
as may be seen in reading his version : — 



* Can the gifted author of these lines and of their music not be pre- 
vailed on to give them and others to the world, as well as to her friends f 



" ®b, I'm Mat, Mat." 209 

" Oh, spring's a pleasant time 
Flowers o' every colour — 
The sivect bird builds her nest, 

And I lang for my lover. 
Aye wakin', oh ! 

Wakin' aye and wearie : 
Sleep I can get nane, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie ! 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I wauk I'm eerie, 
Rest I carina get, 

For thinkin' o' my dearie. 
Aye wakin', oh ! 

Wakin' aye and weary, 
Come, come, blissful dream, 

Bring me to my dearie. 

Darksome nicht comes doun— 

A' the lave are sleepin' ; 
I think on my kind lad. 

And blin 1 my een wi' greetin'. 
Aye wakin', oh ! 

Wakin' aye and weary ; 
Hope is sweet, but ne'er 

Sae sweet as my dearie !" 

How weak these italics ! No one can doubt which of 
these is the better. The old song- is perfect in the pro- 
cession, and in the simple beauty of its thoughts and 
words. A ploughman or shepherd — for I hold that it is 
a man's song — comes in " wat, wat" after a hard day's 
work among the furrows or on the hill. The watness of 
wat, wat, is as much wetter than wet as a Scotch mist is 
more of a mist than an English one ; and he is not only 
wat, wat, but " weary," longing for a dry skin and a warm 
bed and rest ; but no sooner said and felt, than, by the 
law of contrast, he thinks on " Mysie" or " Ailie," his 
Genevieve ; and then " all thoughts, all passions, all de- 
lights" begin to stir him, and " fain wad I rise and rin" 
(what a swiftness beyond run is " rin" !) Love now 
makes him a poet ; the true imaginative power enters and 
takes possession of him. By this time his clothes are off, 
and he is snug in bed ; not a wink can he sleep ; that " fain" 
is domineering over him, — and he breaks out into what 
is as genuine passion and poetry, as anything from Sappho 
to Tennyson — abrupt, vivid, heedless of syntax. " Sim- 
mer's a pleasant time." Would any of our greatest 



210 Iborae Subsectxme. 

geniuses, being limited to one word, have done better 
than take "pleasant"? and then the fine vagueness of 
"time"! " Flowers o' every colour;" he gets a glimpse 
of " herself a fairer flower," and is off in pursuit. "The 
water rins ower the heugh" (a steep precipice) ; flinging 
itself wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my 
true lover. Nothing can be simpler and finer than 

"When I sleep, I dream ; 

When I wauk, I'm eerie." 

" Lanely nicht ;" how much richer and more touching than 
"darksome." "Feather beds are saft;" " pentit rooms 
are bonnie ;" I would infer from this, that his " dearie," 
his "true love," was a lass up at "the big house" — a 
dapper Abigail possibly — at Sir William's at the Castle, 
and then we have the final paroxysm upon Friday nicht — 
Friday at the gloamin' ! O for Friday nicht ! — Friday's 
lang o' comin' ! — it being very likely Thursday before 
day-break when this affectionate ululatus ended in 
repose. 

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some 
clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff of 
love ? He does not go off upon her eye-brows, or even 
her eyes ; he does not sit down, and in a genteel way 
announce that " love in thine eyes for ever sits," etc. etc., 
or that her feet look out from under her petticoats like 
little mice : he is far past that ; he is not making love, he 
is in it. This is one and a chief charm of Burns' love-songs, 
which are certainly of all love-songs except those wild 
snatches left to us by her who flung herself from the Leu- 
cadian rock, the most in earnest, the tenderest, the " most 
moving delicate and full of life." Burns makes you feel 
the reality and the depth, the truth of his passion : it is 
not her eyelashes, or her nose, or her dimple, or even 

" A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson diops 
I' the bottom of a cowslip," 

that are "winging the fervour of his love;" not even her 
soul ; it is herself. This concentration and earnestness, 
this pcrfervor of our Scottish love poetry, seems to me to 
contrast curiously with the light, trifling, philandering of 
the English ; indeed, as far as I remember, we have 




Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed." — Page 211 



"©b, I'm mat, Mat/' 211 

almost no love-songs in English, of the same class as this 
one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the 
genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of 
the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the 
finest love-song in our or in any language ; the love being 
affectionate more than passionate, love in possession not 
in pursuit ? 

" Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My plaidie to the angry :iirt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: 
Or did Misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom, 

To share it a 1 , to share it a'. 

" Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 
The desert were a paradise, 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there ; 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.'" 

The following is Mr. Chambers's account of the origin 
of this song : — Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from 
Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of 
which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, 
that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat 
down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an 
old song, beginning with the words — 

" The robin cam' to the wren's nest, 

And keekit in, and keekit in : 
4 O wae's me on your auld pow ! 

Wad ye be in, wad ye be in ? 
Ye'se ne'er get leave to lie without. 

And I within, and I within, 
As lang's I hae an auld clout, 

To row ye in. to row ye in. 1 " 

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slip- 
ping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin 
sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself — " I'd shelter 
thee, I'd shelter thee ;" " If thou wert there, if thou wert 
there;" and though the morning was at the window, he 
was up by eight, making breakfast for John and Mary. 



212 Iborae Subsectvae. 



EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES. 

(reprinted from "the museum.") 



" Nozv, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would 
have you to study that exactly; that so there be no sea, river ; nor 
fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes ; all the fowls of the 
air; all the several kinds of shrubi and trees, "whether in forest or 
orchard ; all the sorts of herbs and flowers that gro%v upon the ground ; 
all the 7'arious metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth. Let 
nothing of all these be hidden from thee. . . . But because, as the wise 
man Solomon saith, wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and 
that kno7vledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul ; it behoveth 
thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and 
all thy hope, and, by faith formed in love to cleave unto him, so that 
thou mayest never be separated from him by thy sins." — Letter from 
Garagantua to his son Pantagruel. 

" Qui curiosus postulat totum su<z 
Pater e menti,ferre qui non sufficit 
Mediocritatis conscientiam suce, 
fludex in i q u us, (estimator est mains 
Suique naturceque ; nam rerum parens, 
Libanda tantum quce venit mortalibus, 
Nos scire pauca, multa mirari jubet." 

" — Quiescet animus, errabit minus 

Cohteutus critditione parabili, 

Nee qucerct illam, siqua qucrrentem fugit. 

Nescire qucedam magna pars sapient ice est." 

Grotjus. 

ITpa>TOf \opTov, eira crTa\vv, eira n\ijpr) <titov ev t<Z <rr6i\v'i. 

One of the chief sins of our time is hurry : it is helter- 
skelter, and devil take the hindmost. Off we go all too 
swift at starting, and we neither run so fast nor so far as 
we would have done, had we taken it cannily at first. 
This is true of a boy as well as of a blood colt. Not only 
are boys and colts made to do the work and the running 
of fullgrown men and horses, but they are hurried out of 
themselves and their now, and pushed into the middle of 
next week where nobody is wanting them, and beyond 
which they frequently never get. 



iS&ucatfon ftbroucjb tbe Senses. 213 

The main duty of those who care for the young is to 
secure their wholesome, their entire growth, for health is 
just the development of the whole nature in its due 
sequences and proportions : first the blade — then the ear 
— then, and not till then, the full corn in the ear ; and 
thus, as Dr. Temple wisely says, " not to forget wisdom 
in teaching knowledge." If the blade be forced, and 
usurp the capital it inherits ; if it be robbed by you its 
guardian of its birthright, or squandered like a spend- 
thrift, then there is not any ear, much less any corn ; if 
the blade be blasted or dwarfed in our haste and greed 
for the full shock and its price, we spoil all three. It is 
not easy to keep this always before one's mind, that the 
young " idea" is in a young body, and that healthy 
growth and harmless passing of the time are more to be 
cared for than what is vainly called accomplishment. 
We are preparing him to run his race, and accomplish 
that which is one of his chief ends ; but we are too apt 
to start him off at his full speed, and be either bolts or 
breaks down — the worst thing for him generally being to 
win. In this way a child or boy should be regarded 
much more as a mean than as an end, and his cultivation 
should have reference to this ; his mind, as old Mon- 
taigne said, should be forged, as well as — indeed, I 
would say, rather than — furnished, fed rather than filled, 
— two not always coincident conditions. Now exercise 
— the joy of interest, of origination, of activity, of excite- 
ment — the play of the faculties, — this is the true life of a 
boy, not the accumulation of mere words. Words — the 
coin of thought — unless as the means of buying some- 
thing else, are just as useless as other coin when it is 
hoarded ; and it is as silly, and in the true sense as much 
the part and lot of a miser to amass words for their own 
sakes, as to keep all your guineas in a stocking and never 
spend them, but be satisfied with every now and then 
looking greedily at them and making them chink. 
Therefore it is that I dislike — as indeed who doesn't ? — 
the cramming system. The great thing with knowledge 
and the young is to secure that it shall be their own — 
that it be not merely external to their inner and real self, 
but shall go in succum et sanguinem ; and therefore it is, 



214 Iborae Subsecivac. 

that the self-teaching - that a baby and a child give them- 
selves remains with them for ever — it is of their essence, 
whereas what is given them ab extra, especially if it be 
received mechanically, without relish, and without any 
energizing of the entire nature, remains pitifully useless 
and wersh. Try, therefore, always to get the resident 
teacher inside the skin, and who is for ever giving his 
lessons, to help you and be on your side. 

Now in children, as we all know, he works chiefly 
through the senses. The quantity of accurate observa- 
tion— of induction, and of deduction too (both of a much 
better quality than most of Mr. Buckle's) ; of reasoning 
from the known to the unknown ; of inferring ; the 
nicety of appreciation of the like and the unlike, the com- 
mon and the rare, the odd and the even ; the skill of the 
rough and the smooth — of form, of appearance, of tex- 
ture, of weight, of all the minute and deep philosophies of 
the touch and of the other senses, — the amount of this 
sort of objective knowledge which every child of eight 
years has acquired — especially if he can play in the lap of 
nature and out of doors — and acquired for life, is, if we 
could only think of it, marvellous beyond any of our 
mightiest marches of intellect. Now, could we only get 
the knowledge of the school to go as sweetly and deeply 
and clearly into the vitals of the mind as this self-teach- 
ing lias done, and this is the paradisiac way of it, we 
should make the young mind grow as well as learn, and 
be in understanding a man as well as in simplicity a 
child ; we should get rid of much of that dreary, sheer 
endurance of their school-hours — that stolid lending of 
ears that do not hear — that objectless looking without 
ever once seeing, and straining their minds without an 
aim ; alternating, it may be, with some feats of dexterity 
and effort, like a man trying to lift himself in his own 
arms, or take his head in his teeth, exploits as dangerous, 
as ungraceful, and as useless, except to glorify the show- 
man and bring wages in, as the feats of an acrobat. 

But you will ask, how is all this to be avoided if every- 
body must know how far the sun is from Georgium Szdus, 
and how much of phosphorus is in our bones, and of 
ptyalin and flint in human spittle — besides some 10,000 




A BOY WHO GOES BIRD-NESTING."— /*«£* 215. 



Education ftbvouab tbe Senses. 215 

times 10,000 other things which we must be told and try 
to remember, and which we cannot prove not to be true, 
but which I decline to say we know. 

But is it necessary that everybody should know every- 
thing ? Is it not much more to the purpose for ev< ry 
man, when his turn comes, to be able to do something; 
and I say, that other things being equal, a boy who g< es 
bird-nesting, and makes a collection of eggs, and knows 
all their colours and spots, going through the excitements 
and glories of getting them, and observing everything 
with a keenness, an intensity, an exactness, and a p t- 
manency, which only youth and a quick pulse, and fresh 
blood and spirits combined, can achieve, — a boy who 
teaches himself natural history in this way, is not only 
a healthier and happier boy, but is abler in mind and 
body for entering upon the great game of life, than the 
pale, nervous, bright-eyed, feverish, "interesting" boy, 
with a big head and a small bottom and thin legs, who is 
the "captain," the miracle of the school; dux for his 
brief year or two of glory, and, if he live, booby for life. 
I am, of course, not going in for a complete curriculum 
of general ignorance ; but I am for calling the attention 
of teachers to drawing out the minds, the energies, the 
hearts of their pupils through their senses, as well as pour- 
ing in through these same apertures the general knowl- 
edge of mankind, the capital of the race, into this one 
small being, who it is to be hoped will contrive to forget 
much of the mere words he has unhappily learned. 

For we may say of our time in all seriousness, what 
Sydney Smith said in the fulness of his wisdom and his 
fun of the pantologic master of Trinity — Science is our 
forte, omniscience is our foible. There is the seed of a 
whole treatise, a whole organon in this joke ; think over 
it, and let it simmer in your mind, and you will feel its sig- 
nificance and its power. Now, what is science so called to 
every 999 men in 1000, but something that the one man 
tells them he has been told by some one else — who may 
be one among say 50,000 — is true, but of the truth of 
which these 999 men (and probably even the teaching 
thousandth man.) can have no direct test, and, accordingly, 
for the truth or falsehood of which they, by a law of 



216 Iborae Subsecivae. 

their nature, which rejects what has no savour and is 
superfluous, don't care one fig. How much better, how- 
much dearer, and more precious in a double sense, be- 
cause it has been bought by themselves, — how much 
nobler is the knowledge which our little friend, young 
Edward Forbes, " that marvellous boy," for instance— 
and what an instance ! — is picking up, as he looks into 
everything he sees, and takes photographs upon his retina 
■ — the camera lucida of his mind — which never fade, of 
every midge that washes its face as a cat does, and preens 
its wings, every lady-bird that alights on his knee, and 
folds and unfolds her gauzy pinions under their spotted 
and glorious lids. How more real is not only this knowl- 
edge, but this little knowledger in his entire nature, than 
the poor being who can maunder amazingly the entire 
circle of human science at second, or it may be, twentieth 
hand ! 

There are some admirable, though cursory remarks on 
" Ornithology as a Branch of Liberal Education," by the 
late Dr. Adams of Banchory, the great Greek scholar, in 
a pamphlet bearing this title, which he read as a paper 
before the last meeting of the British Association in Aber- 
deen. It is not only interesting as a piece of natural 
history, and a touching co-operation of father and son in 
the same field — the one on the banks of his own beautiful 
Dee and among the wilds of the Grampians, the other 
among the Himalayas and the forests of Cashmere ; the 
son having been enabled, by the knowledge of his native 
birds got under his father's eye, when placed in an un- 
known country to recognise his old feathered friends, 
and to make new ones and tell their story ; it is also val- 
uable as coming from a man of enormous scholarship and 
knowledge— the most learned physician of his time — 
who knew Aristotle and Plato, and all those old fellows, 
as we know Maunder or Lardner — a hardworking country 
surgeon, who was ready to run at any one's call — but who 
did not despise the modern enlightenments of his profession, 
because they were not in Paulus Agineta; though, at the 
same time, he did not despise the admirable and in- 
dustrious Paul because he was not up to the last doctrine 
of the nucleated cell, or did not read his Hippocrates 



Education Gbrougb tbe Sensed* 217 

by the blaze of paraffme ; a man greedy of all knowledge, 
and welcoming it from all comers, but who, at the end 
of a long life of toil and thought, gave it as his conviction 
that one of the best helps to true education, one of the 
best counteractives to the necessary mischiefs of mere 
scientific teaching and information, was to be found in 
getting the young to teach themselves some one of the 
natural sciences, and singling out ornithology- as one of 
the readiest and most delightful for such a life as his. 

I end these intentionally irregular remarks by a story. 
Some years ago I was in one of the wildest recesses of 
the Perthshire Highlands. It was in autumn, and the 
little school, supported mainly by the Chief, who dwelt 
all the year round in the midst of his own people, was to 
be examined by the minister, whose native tongue, like 
that of his flock, was Gaelic, and who was as awkward 
and ineffectual, and sometimes as unconsciously indeco- 
rous, in his English, as a Cockney is in his kilt. It was a 
great occasion : the keen-eyed, firm-limbed, brown-cheek- 
ed little fellows were all in a buzz of excitement as we 
came in, and before the examination began every eye was 
looking at us strangers as a dog looks at his game, or 
when seeking it ; they knew everything we had on, every- 
thing that could be known through their senses. I never 
felt myself so studied and scrutinized before. If any 
one could have examined them upon what they thus 
mastered, Sir Charles Trevelyanand John Mill would have 
come away, astonished, and, I trust, humbled. Well, then, 
the work of the day began ; the mill was set a-going, 
and what a change ! In an instant their eyes were like 
the windows of a house with the blinds down ; no one 
was looking out ; everything blank ; their very features 
changed — their jaws fell, their cheeks flattened, they 
drooped and looked ill at ease — stupid, drowsy, sulky — 
and getting them to speak or think, or in any way to 
energize was like trying to get any one to come to the 
window at three of a summer morning, when, if they do 
come, they are half awake, rubbing their eyes and growl- 
ing. So with my little Celts. They were like an idle and 
half asleep collie by the fireside, as contrasted with the 
collie on the hill and in the ioy of work ; the form 



218 Iborae Subsecfvac. 

of clog and boy are there — he, the self of each, was 
elsewhere (for I differ from Professor Ferrier in thinking 
that the dog has the reflex ego, and is a very knowing 
being). I noticed that anything they really knew roused 
them somewhat ; what they had merely to transmit or pass 
along, as if they were a tube through which the master 
blew the pea of knowledge into our faces, was performed 
as stolidly as if they were nothing but a tube. 

At last the teacher asked where Sheffield was, and was 
answered ; it was then pointed to by the dux, as a dot 
on a skeleton map. And now came a flourish. " What 
is Sheffield famous for?" Blank stupor, hopeless vacuity, 
till he came to a sort of sprouting " Dougal Cratur" — 
almost as wee, and as gleg, and as tousy about the head, 
as my own Kintail terrier, whom I saw at that moment 
through the open door careering after a hopeless rabbit, 
with much benefit to his muscles and his wind — who was 
trembling with keenness. He shouted out something 
which was liker " cutlery" than anything else, and was 
received as such amid our rapturous applause. I then 
ventured to ask the master to ask small and red Dougal 
what cutlery was ; but from the sudden erubescence of 
his pallid, ill-fed cheek, and the alarming brightness of his 
eyes, I twigged at once that he didn't himself know what 
it meant. So I put the question myself, and was not sur- 
prised to find that not one of them, from Dougal up to a 
young strapping shepherd of eighteen, knew what it was ! 

I told them that Sheffield was famous for making knives 
and scissors, and razors, and that cutlery meant the 
manufacture of anything that cuts. Presto ! and the 
blinds were all up, and eagerness, and nous, and brains 
at the window. I happened to have a Wharncliffe, with 
" Rodgers and Sons, Sheffield," on the blade. I sent it 
round, and finally presented it to the enraptured Dougal. 
Would not each one of those boys, the very boobiest 
there, know that knife again when they saw it, and be 
able to pass a creditable competitive examination on all 
its ins and outs ? and wouldn't they remember " cutlery" 
for a day or two ? Well, the examination over, the min- 
ister performed an oration of much ambition and difficulty 
to himself and to us, upon the general question, and a 



Bfcueation abrou^b tbc Senses. 219 

great many other questions, into which his Gaelic subtlety 
fitted like the mists into the hollows of Ben-a-Houlich, 
with, it must be allowed, a somewhat similar tendency to 
confuse and conceal what was beneath ; and he con- 
cluded with thanking the Chief, as he well might, for his 
generous support of "this aixlent CEMETERY of abdica- 
tion." Cemetery indeed ! The blind leading the blind, 
with the ancient result ; the dead burying their dead. 

Now, not greater is the change we made from that low, 
small, Stirling", gloomy, mephitic room, into the glorious 
open air, the loch lying asleep in the sun, and telling over 
again on its placid face, as in a dream, every hill and 
cloud, and birch and pine, and passing bird and cradled 
boat ; the Black Wood of Rannoch standing " in the midst 
of its own darkness," frowning out upon us like the Past 
disturbed, and far off in the clear ether, as in another and 
a better world, the dim shepherds of Etive pointing, like 
ghosts at noonday, to the weird shadows of Glencoe ; — 
not greater was this change, than is that from the dingy, 
oppressive, weary "cemetery" of mere word-knowledge 
to the open air, the light and liberty, the divine infinity 
and richness of nature and her teaching. 

We cannot change our time, nor would we if we could. 
It is God's time as well as ours. And our time is 
emphatically that for achieving and recording and teach- 
ing man's dominion over and insight into matter and its 
forces — his subduing the earth ; but let us turn now and 
then from our necessary and honest toil in this neo-Pla- 
tonic cavern where we win gold and renown, and where 
we often are obliged to stand in our own light, and watch 
our own shadows as they glide, huge and misshapen, 
across the inner gloom ; let us come out betimes with 
our gold, that we may spend it and get " goods" for it, 
and when we can look forth on that ample world of day- 
light which we can never hope to overrun, and into that 
overarching heaven where, amid clouds and storms, light- 
ning and sudden tempest, there are revealed to those who 
look for them, lucid openings into the pure, deep empy- 
rean, " as it were the very body of heaven in its clear- 
ness;" and when, best of all, we may remember Who it 
is who stretched out these heavens as a tent to dwell in, 



220 Iborae Subsecivae. 

and on whose footstool we may kneel, and out of the 
depths of our heart cry aloud, 

Te Deum veneramur, 
Te Sancte Pater! 

we shall return into our cave, and to our work, all the 
better of such a lesson, and of such a reasonable service, 
and dig none the worse. 

Science which ends in itself, or still worse, returns 
upon its maker, and gets him to worship himself, is worse 
than none ; it is only when it makes it more clear than be- 
fore who is the Maker and Governor, not only of the ob- 
jects, but of the subjects of itself, that knowledge is the 
mother of virtue. But this is an endless theme. My 
only aim in these desultory hints is to impress parents and 
teachers with the benefits of the study, the personal en- 
gagement — with their own hands and eyes, and legs and 
ears — in some form or another of natural history, by their 
children and pupils and themselves, as counteracting evil, 
and doing immediate and actual good. Even the im- 
mense activity in the Post-Office stamp line of business 
among our youngsters has been of immense use in many 
ways, besides being a diversion and an interest. I my- 
self came to the knowledge of Queensland, and a great 
deal more, through its blue twopenny. 

If any one wishes to know how far wise and clever and 
patriotic men may occasionally go in the way of giving 
" your son" a stone for bread, and a serpent for a fish, — 
may get the nation's money for that which is not bread, 
and give their own labour for that which satisfies no one ; 
industriously making sawdust into the shapes of bread, 
and chaff into the appearance of meal, and contriving, at 
wonderful expense of money and brains, to show what 
can be done in the way of feeding upon wind, — let him 
take a turn through certain galleries of the Kensington 
Museum. 

" Yesterday forenoon," writes a friend, " I went to 
South Kensington Museum. It is really an absurd col- 
lection. A great deal of valuable material and a great 
deal of perfect rubbish. The analyses are even worse 
than I was led to suppose. There is an analysis of A 



jE&ucatton Gbrougb tbe Senses. 221 

MAN. First, a man contains so much water, and there 
you have the amount of water in a bottle ; so much albu- 
men, and there is the albumen ; so much phosphate of 
lime, fat, hasmatin, fibrine, salt, etc. etc. Then in the 
next case so much carbon ; so much phosphorus— a bot- 
tle with sticks of phosphorus ; so much potassium, and 
there is a bottle with potassium ; calcium, etc. They 
have not bottles of oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, etc., but 
they have cubical pieces of wood on which is written 
' the quantity of oxygen in the human body would occupy 
the space of 170 {e.g.) cubes of the size of this,' etc. etc." 
And so with analysis of bread, etc. etc. What earth- 
ly good can this do any one ? 

No wonder that the bewildered beings whom I have 
seen wandering through these rooms, yawned more fre- 
quently and more desperately than I ever observed even 
in church. 

So then, cultivate observation, energy, handicraft, in- 
genuity, outness in boys, so as to give them a pursuit as 
well as a study. Look after the blade, and don't coax or 
crush the ear out too soon, and remember that the full 
corn in the ear is not due till the harvest, when the great 
School breaks up, and we must all dismiss and go our 
several ways. 



222 1bot*ae Subsecivae. 



THE BLACK DWARFS BONES. 



, . . l< If 'thou ivert grim, 

Lame, ugly, crooked, swart, prodigious." 

KING JOHN. 

These gnarled, stunted, useless old bones, were all 
that David Ritchie, the original of the Black Dwarf, had 
for left femur and tibia, and we have merely to look at 
them, and add poverty, to know the misery summed up 
in their possession. They seem to have been blighted 
and rickety. The thigh-bone is very sh r >rtand slight, and 
singularly loose in texture ; the leg-bone is dwarfed, but 
dense and stout. They were given to me many years 
ago by the late Andrew Ballantyne, Esq., of Woodhouse 
(the Wudess, as they call it on Tweedside), and their 
genuineness is unquestionable. 

As anything must be interesting about one once so 
forlorn and miserable, and whom our great wizard has 
made immortal, I make no apology for printing the 
following letters from my old friend, Mr. Craig, long 
surgeon in Peebles, and who is now spending his evening, 
after a long, hard, and useful day's work, in the quiet 
vale of Manor, within a mile or two of " Cannie Elshie's" 
cottage. The picture he gives is very affecting, and should 
make us all thankful that we are " wiselike." There is 
much that is additional to Sir Walter's account, in his 
" Author's Edition" of the Waverley Novels. 

" Hall Manor, Thursday, May 20, 1858. 

" My dear Sir, — David Ritchie, alias Bowed Davie, 
was born at Easter Happrew, in the parish of Stobo, in the 
year 1741. He was brought to Woodhouse, in the parish 
of Manor, when very young. His father was a labourer, 
and occupied a cottage on that farm ; his mother, Anabel 



Zbc JBlack 2>warf JBones. 223 

Niven, was a delicate woman, severely afflicted with 
rheumatism, and could not take care of him when an 
infant. To this cause he attributed his deformity, and 
this, if added to imperfect clothing, and bad food, and 
poverty, will account for the grotesque figure which he 
became. He never was at school, but he could read 
tolerably ; had many books ; was fond of poetry, espe- 
cially Allan Ramsay ; he hated Burns. His father and 
mother both died early, and poor Davie became a home- 
less wanderer ; he was two years at Broughton Mill, 
employed in stirring the husks of oats, which were used 
for drying the corn on the kiln, and required to be kept 
constantly in motion-; he boasted, with a sort of rapture, 
of his doings there. From thence he went to Lyne's Mill, 
near his birthplace, where he continued one year at the 
same employment, and from thence he was sent to Edin- 
burgh to learn brush-making, but made no progress in his 
education there ; was annoyed by the wicked boys, or 
keelies, as he called them, and found his way back to 
Manor and Woodhouse. The farm now possessed by 
Mr. Ballantyne was then occupied by four tenants, among 
whom he lived ; but his house was at Old Woodhouse, 
where the late Sir James Nasmyth built him a house 
with two apartments, and separate outer doors, one for 
himself exactly his own height when standing upright in 
it ; and this stands as it was built, exactly four feet. A 
Mr. Ritchie, the father of the late minister of Athelstane- 
ford, was then tenant; his wife and Davie could not 
agree, and she repeatedly asked her husband to put him 
away, by making the highest stone of his house the lowest. 
Ritchie left, his house was pulled down, and Davie 
triumphed in having the stones of his chimney-top made 
a step to his door, when this new house was built. He 
was not a little vindictive at times, when irritated, espe- 
cially when any allusion was made to his deformity. On 
one occasion, he and some other boys were stealing 
pease in Mr. Gibson's field, who then occupied Wood- 
house ; all the others took leg-bail, but Davie's locomo- 
tion being tardy, he was caught, shaken, and scolded by 
Gibson for all the rest. This he never forgot, and vowed 
to be avenged on the ' auld sinner and deevil ;' and one 



224 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

day when Gibson was working- about his own door, 
Davie crept up to the top of the house, which was low, 
and threw a large stone down on his head, which brought 
the old man to the ground. Davie crept down the other 
side of the house, got into bed beside his mother, and it 
was never known where the stone came from, till he 
boasted of it long afterwards. He only prayed that it 
might sink down through his ' ham-pan' (his skull). 
His personal appearance seems to have been almost in- 
describable, not bearing any likeness to anything in this 
upper world. But as near as I can learn, his forehead 
was very narrow and low, sloping upwards and backwards, 
something of the hatchet shape ; his eyes deep-set, 
small, and piercing ; his nose straight, thin as the end of 
a cut of cheese, sharp at the point, nearly touching his 
fearfully projecting chin ; and his mouth formed nearly a 
straight line ; his shoulders rather high, but his body 
otherwise the size of ordinary men ; his arms were re- 
markably strong. With very little aid he built a high 
garden wall, which still stands, many of the stones of 
huge size ; these the shepherds laid to his directions. 
His legs beat all power of description ; they were bent in 
every direction, so that Mungo Park, then a surgeon at 
Peebles, who was called to operate on him for strangu- 
lated hernia, said he could compare them to nothing but 
a pair of cork-screws ; but the principal turn they took 
was from the knee outwards, so that he rested on his 
inner ankles, and the lower part of his tibias. The posi- 
tion of the bones in the woodcut gives some, but a very 
imperfect idea of this; the thrawn twisted limbs must 
have crossed each other at the knees, and looked more 
like roots than legs, 

'An' his knotted knees play'd aye knoit between.' 

" He had never a shoe on his feet ; the parts on which 
he walked were rolled in rags, old stockings, etc., but the 
toes always bare, even in the most severe weather. His 
mode of progressing was as extraordinary as his shape. 
He carried a long pole, or ' kent,' like the alpenstock, 
tolerably polished, with a turned top on it, on which he 
rested, placed it before him, he then lifted one leg, some- 



Zbc JBlack Dwarf's ;©ones. 225 

thing in the manner that the oar of a boat is worked, and 
then the other, next advanced his staff, and repeated the 
operation, by diligently doing which he was able to make 
not very slow progress. — He frequently walked to Peebles, 
four miles, and back again, in one day. His arms had 
no motion at the elbow-joints, but were active enough 
otherwise. He was not generally ill-tempered, but furi- 
ous when roused. "Robert Craig." 

" Hall Manor, June 15, 185S. 

"MY DEAR Sir, — I have delayed till now to finish 
Bowed Davie, in the hope of getting more information, 
and to very little purpose. His contemporaries are now 
so few, old, and widely scattered, that they are difficult to 
be got at, and when come at, their memories are failed 
like their bodies. I have forgotten at what stage of his 
history I left off ; but if I repeat you can omit the repe- 
titions. Sir James Nasmyth, late of Posso, took com- 
passion on the houseless, homeless lusus nature?, and 
had a house built for him to his own directions ; the 
door, window, and everything to suit his diminished, gro- 
tesque form ; the door four feet high, the window twelve 
by eighteen inches, without glass, closed by a wooden 
board, hung on leathern hinges, which he used to keep 
shut. Through it he reconnoitred all visitors, and only 
admitted ladies and particular favourites ; he was very 
superstitious ; ghosts, fairies, and robbers he dreaded 
most. I have forgotten if I mentioned how he contrived 
to be fed and warmed. He had a small allowance from 
the parish poor-box, about fifty shillings ; this was eked 
out by an annual peregrination through the parish, when 
some gave him food, others money, wool, etc., which he 
hoarded most miserly. How he cooked his food I have 
not been able to learn, for his sister, who lived in the 
same cottage with him, was separated by a stone-and- 
lime wall, and had a separate door of the usual size, and 
window to match, and was never allowed to enter his 
dwelling ; but he brought home such loads, that the shep- 
herds had to be on the look-out for him, when on his an- 
nual eleemosynary expeditions, to carry home part of his 
spoil. On one occasion a servant was ordered to give 



226 Iborae Subsecfvae* 

him some salt, for containing which he carried a long 
stocking ; he thought the damsel had scrimped him in 
quantity, and he sat and distended the stocking till it ap- 
peared less than half full, by pressing down the salt, and 
then called for the gudewife, showed it her, and asked if 
she had ordered Jenny only to give him that wee pickle 
saut ; the maid was scolded, and the stocking filled. He 
spent all his evenings at the back of the Woodhouse 
kitchen fire, and got at least one meal every day, where 
he used to make the rustics gape and stare at the many 
ghost, fairy, or robber stories which he had either heard 
of or invented, and poured out with unceasing volubility, 
and so often, that he believed them all true. But the 
Ballantyne family had no great faith in his veracity, when 
it suited his convenience to fib, exaggerate, or prevaricate, 
particularly when excited by his own lucubrations, or the 
waggery of his more intellectual neighbours and compan- 
ions. He had a seat in the centre, which he always oc- 
cupied, and a stool for his deformed feet and legs ; they 
all rose at times, asking Davie to do likewise, and when 
he got upon his pins, he was shorter than when sitting, 
his body being of the ordinary length, and the deficiency 
all in his legs. On one occasion, a wag named Elder 
put up a log of wood opposite his loophole, made a noise, 
and told Davie that the robbers he dreaded so much were 
now at his house, and would not go away : he peeped 
out, saw the log, and exclaimed, ' So he is, by the Lord 
God and my soul ; Willie Elder, gi'e me the gun, and see 
that she is weel charged.' Elder put in a very large sup- 
ply of powder without shot, rammed it hard, got a stool, 
which Davie mounted, Elder handing him the gun, 
charging him to take time, and aim fair, for if he miss- 
ed him, he would be mad at being shot at, be sure 
to come in, take everything in the house, cut their 
throats, and burn the house after. Davie tremblingly 
obeyed, presented the gun slowly and cautiously, drew 
the trigger ; off went the shot, the musket rebounded, 
and back went Davie with a rattle on the floor. Some 
accomplice tumbled the log ; Davie at length was en- 
couraged to look out, and actually believed that he had 
shot the robber ; said he had done for him now, ' that ane 




Davie tremblingly obeyed." -Page 226 



Cbe JBIacfc Dwarfs Mones. 227 

wad plague him nae mair at ony rate.' He took it into 
his head at one time that he ought to be married, and 
having got the consent of a haverel wench to yoke with 
him in the silken bonds of matrimony, went to the minis- 
ter several times, and asked him to perform the ceremony. 
At length the minister sent him away, saying that he 
could not and would net accommodate him in the matter. 
Davie swung himself out at the door on his kent, much 
crest-fallen, and in great wrath, shutting the door with a 
bang behind him; but opening it again, he shook his 
clenched fist in the parson's face, and said, 'Weel, weel, 
ye'll no let decent, honest folk marry; but, 'od, lad, I'se 
plenish your parish wi' bastards, to see what ye'll mak' o' 
that,' and away he went. He read Hooke's Pantheon, 
and made great use of the heathen deities. He railed 
sadly at the taxes ; some one observed that he need not 
grumble at them as he had none to pay. ' Hae I no' ?' he 
replied ; ' I can neither get a pickle snuff to my neb, nor 
a pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun tax't.' His 
sister and he were on very unfriendly terms. She was ill 
on one occasion; Miss Ballantyne asked how she was 
to-day. He replied, ' I dinna ken, I ha na been in, for I 
hate folk that are aye gaun to dee and never do't.' In 
181 1 he was seized with obstruction of the bowels and 
consequent inflammation ; blisters and various remedies 
were applied for three days without effect. Some one 
came to Mrs. Ballantyne and said that it was 'just about 
a' owre wi' Davie noo.' She went, and he breathed his 
last almost immediately. His sister, without any delay, 
got his keys, and went to his secret repository, Mrs. 
Ballantyne thought to get dead-clothes, but instead, to her 
amazement, she threw three money-bags, one after 
another, into Mrs. Ballantyne's lap, telling her to count 
that, and that, and that. Mrs. B. was annoyed and 
astonished at the multitude of half-crowns and shillings, 
all arranged according to value. He hated sixpences, 
and had none, but the third contained four guineas in 
gold. Mrs. B. was disgusted with the woman's greed, 
and put them all up, saying, what would anybody think if 
they came in and found them counting the man's money 
and his breath scarcely out, — took it all home to her hus- 



228 Iborae Subsectvae. 

band, who made out £4., 2S. in gold, £\o in a bank receipt, 
and £7, 1 8s. in shillings and half-crowns, in all ^22. How 
did he get this ? He had many visitors, the better class 
of whom gave him half-crowns, others shillings and six- 
pences ; the latter he never kept, but converted them into 
shillings and half-crowns whenever he got an oppor- 
tunity. I asked the wright how he got him a coffin. He 
replied, ' Easily ; they made it deeper than ordinary, and 
wider, so as to let in his distorted legs, as it was impos- 
sible to streek him like others.' He often expressed a 
resolve to be buried on the Woodhill top, three miles up 
the water from the churchyard, as he could never lie 
' amang the common trash ;' however, this was not accom- 
plished, as his friend, Sir James Nasmyth, who had prom- 
ised to carry this wish into effect, was on the Continent at 
the time. When Sir James returned he spoke of having 
his remains lifted and buried where he had wished ; but 
this was never done, and the expense of a railing and 
plantation of rowan-trees (mountain ash), his favourite 
prophylactic against the spells of witches and fairies, 
was abandoned. The Woodhill is a romantic, green little 
mount, situated at the west side of the Manor, which washes 
its base on the east, and separates it from Langhaugh 
heights, part of a lofty, rocky, and heathery mountain 
range, and on the west is the ruin of the ancient peel-house 
of old Posso, long the residence of the Nasmyth family. 
And now that we have the Dwarf dead and buried, 
comes the history of his resurrection in 1821. His sister 
died exactly ten years after him. A report had been 
spread that he had been lifted and taken to dissecting- 
rooms in Glasgow, which at that period was the fate of 
many a more seemly corpse than Davie's ; and the young 
men — for Manor had no sexton — who dug the sister's 
grave in the vicinity of her brother's, stimulated by curi- 
osity to see if his body had really been carried off, and if 
still there what his bones were like, lifted them up, and 
carried them to Woodhouse, where they lay a considera- 
ble time, till they were sent to Mr. Ballantyne, then in 
Glasgow. Miss Ballantyne thinks the skull was taken 
away with the other bones, but put back again. I have 
thus given you all the information I can gather about the 




"He was a sort ok paris." — Page 229. 



Hbe JGtacU Dwarfs JGones. 220 

Black Dwarf, that I think worth narrating-. It is reported 
that he sometimes sold a gill, but if this is true the Ballan- 
tynes never knew it. .Miss Ballantyne says that he was not 
ill-tempered, but on the contrary, kind, especially to chil- 
dren. She and her brother were very young when she 
went to Woodhouse, and her father objected to re-setting 
the farm from Sir James, on account of the fearful accounts 
of his horrid temper and barbarous deeds, and Sir James 
said if he ever troubled them that he would immediately 
put him away ; but he was very fond of the younger ones, 
played with them and amused them, though when roused 
and provoked by grown-up people, he raged, stormed, 
swore terrifically, and struck with anything that was near 
him, in short, he had an irritable but not a sulky, sour, 
misanthropic temper. The Messrs. Chambers wrote a 
book about him and his doings at a very early period of 
their literary history. Did I tell you of a female relative, 
Niven (whom he would never see), saying that she would 
come and streek him after he died ? He sent word, ' that 
if she offered to touch his corpse he would rive the 
thrapple oot o' her — he would rather be streekit by Auld 
Clootie's ain red-het hands.' — Yours, truly obliged, 

R. C." 
This poor, vindictive, solitary, and powerful creature, 
was a philocalist : he had a singular love of flowers and 
of beautiful women. He was a sort of Paris, to whom 
the blushing Aphrodites of the Glen used to come, and 
his judgment is said to have been as good, as the world 
generally thinks that of (Enone's handsome and faithless 
mate. His garden was full of the finest Mowers, and it 
was his pleasure, when the young beauties 

" Who bore the blue sky intermixed with flame 
In their fair eyes," 

came to him for their competitive examination, to scan 
them well, and then, without one word, present each with 
a flower, which was of a certain fixed and well-known 
value in Davie's standard calimeter. 

I have heard that there was one kind of rose, his 
xa'/JjoTnor, which he was known to have given only to 
three, and I remember seeing: one of the three, when she 



230 Iborae Subsecivae. 

was past seventy. Margaret Murray, or Morra, was her 
maiden name, and this fine old lady, whom an Oxonian 
would call a Double First, grave and silent, and bent with 
"the pains," when asked by us children, would, with some 
reluctance, and a curious grave smile, produce out of her 
Bible, Bowed Davie's withered and flattened rose : and 
from her looks, even then, I was inclined to affirm the 
decision of the connoisseur of Manor Water. One can 
fancy the scene in that sweet solitary valley, informed like 
its sister Yarrow with pastoral melancholy, with a young 
May, bashful and eager, presenting herself for honours, 
encountering from under that penthouse of eyebrows the 
steady gaze of the strange eldritch creature ; and then his 
making up his mind, and proceeding to pluck his award 
and present it to her, " herself a fairer flower ;" and then 
turning with a scowl, crossed with a look of tenderness, 
crawl into his den. Poor " gloomy Dis," slinking in alone. 

They say, that when the candidate came, he surveyed 
her from his window, his eyes gleaming out of the dark- 
ness, and if he liked her not, he disappeared ; if he would 
entertain her, he beckoned her into the garden. 

I have often thought that the Brownie, of whom the 
south country legends are so full, must have been some 
such misshapen creature, strong, willing, and forlorn, 
conscious of his hideous forbidding looks, and ready to 
purchase affection at any cost of labour, with a kindly 
heart, and a longing for human sympathy and intercourse. 
Such a being looks like the prototype of the Aiken-Drum 
of our infancy, and of that " drudging goblin," of whom 
we all know how he 

". . _. . Sweat 
To earn his cream-bowl daily set, 
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn. 
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, 
That ten day.lab'rers could not end ; 
Then lies him down, the lubber* fiend, 
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length, 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength, 
And cropful out of doors he flings, 
Ere the first cock his matin rings." 

My readers will, I am sure, more than pardon me for 
giving them the following poem on Aiken-Drum, for the 

* Lob-lye-by-the-fire. 



Zbe Jfilacfc 2>warfa JBoncs. 231 

pleasure of first reading which, many years ago, I am in- 
debted to Mr. R. Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scot- 
land, where its " extraordinary merit" is generously ac- 
knowledged. 

THE BROWNIE OF BLEDNOCH. 

There cam 1 a strange wicht to our town-en', 
An' the fient a body did him ken ; 
He tirl'd na lang, but he glided ben 
Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. 

His face did glow like the glow o' the west, 
When the drumlie cloud has it half o'ercast ; 
Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest, 
O Sirs ! 'twas Aiken-drum. 

I trow the bauldest stood aback, 
Wi' a gape an' a glow'r till their lugs did crack, 
As the shapeless phantom mum'lmg spak, 
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum ? 

O ! had ye seen the bairns's fricht, 
As they stared at this wild and unyirthy wicht, 
As they skulkit in 'tween the dark an' the licht, 
An' graned out, Aiken-drum ! 

" Sauf us !'' quoth Jock, " d'ye see sick een ?" 
Cries Kate, " There's a hole where a nose should ha' been ; 
An' the mouth's like a gash that a horn had ri'en ; 
Wow ! keep's frae Aiken-drum !" 

The black dog growlin' cow'red his tail, 
The lassie swarf d, loot fa' the pail ; 
Rob's lingle brack as he mendit the flail, 
At the sicht o' Aiken-drum. 

His matted head on his breast did rest, 
A lang blue beard wan'cred down like a vest ; 
But the glare o' his e'e hath nae bard exprest, 
Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum. 

Roun 1 his hairy form there was naething seen, 
But a philabeg o' the rashes green, 
An' his knotted knees played aye knoit between ; 
What a sicht was Aiken-drum ! 

On his wauchie arms three claws did meet, 
As they traifd on the grun' by his taeless feet ; 
Even the auld gudeman himsel' did sweat, 
To look at Aiken-drum. 

But he drew a score, himsel' did sain. 
The auld wife tried, but her tongue was gane ,* 
While the young ane closer clespit her wean, 
And turn'd frae Aiken-drum. 



232 Iborae Subeectvae. 

But the canty auld wife cam till her braith. 
And she thocht the Bible might ward aff skaith ; 
Be it benshee, bogle, ghaist, or wraith — 
But it fear'd na 1 Aiken-drum. 

" His presence protect us !" quoth the auld gudeman 
" What wad ye, where won ye, — by sea or by Ian' ? 

I conjure ye speak — by the Beuk in my han'! " 

What a grane gae Aiken-drum ! 

" I lived in a Ian' whar we saw nae sky, 
I dwalt in a spot whar a burn rins na by ; 
But 1'se dwall noo wi' you if ye like to try — 
Hae ye wark for Aiken-drum ? 

" I'll shiel a' your sheep i' the mornin' sune,* 
I'll berry your crap by the licht o' the moon, 
An' ba the bairns wi' an unkenn'd tune, 
If ye'll keep poor Aiken-d.um. 

" I'll loup the linn when ye canna wade, 
I'll kirn the kirn, and I'll turn the bread ; 
An' the wildest fillie that e'er can rede 

I'se tame't," quoth Aiken-drum. 

" To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell — 
To gather the dew frae the heather-bell — 
An' to look at my face in your clear crystal well, 
Micht gie pleasure to Aiken-drum. 

"I'e seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark ; 
I use nae beddin', shoon, nor sark ; 
But a cogfu' o' brose 'tween the licht an' the dark, 
Is the wage o' Aiken-drum." 

Quoth the wylie auld wife, " The thing speaks weel ; 
Our workers are scant — we hae routh o' meal ; 
Gif he'll do as he says — be he man, be he de'il, 
Wow ! we'll try this Aiken-drum." 

But the wenches skirl'd, " He's no' be here ! 
His eldritch look gars us swarf wi' fear ; 
An' the fient a ane will the house come near, 
If they think but o' Aiken-drum. 

" For a foul and a stalwart ghaist is he, 
Despair sits broodin' aboon hise'e-bree, 
And unchancie to light o' a maiden's e'e, 
Is the glower o' Aiken-drum." 



* On one occasion, Brownie had undertaken to gather the sheep into 
the bught by an early hour, and sozedously did he perform his task, that 
not only was there not one sheep left on the hill, but he had also collect- 
ed a number of hares, which were found fairly penned along with them. 
Upon being congratulated on his extraordinary success, Brownie exclaim- 
ed, " Confound thae wee gray anes ! they cost me mair trou'jle than a' the 
lave o' them." 



Cbe JBlacfc Shvarf s JSones. 

" Puir clipmalabors ! ye hae little wit • 
Is t na hallowmas noo, an' tlie crap out yet ?" 
. Sac she seclenced them a' wi' a stamp o^ her fit 
bit-yer-wa's-doun, Aiken-drum.'.' 

Koun' a' that side what wark was dune, 
By the streamer's gleam, or the glance o' the moon " 
A word or a wish— an' the Brownie cam sune, 
bae helpfu' was Aiken-drum. 

But he slade aye awa or the sun was up, 
He ne er could look straught on Macmillan's cup :* 
lhey watch d— but nane saw him his brose ever sup 
Nor a spune sought Aiken-drum. 

On Blednoch banks, an' on crystal Cree, ' 
* or mony a day a toil'd wicht was he • 
And the bairns they play'd harmless roun' his knee, 
bae social was Aiken-drum. 

But a new-made wife, fit' o' rippish freaks, 
*ond o a things feat for the five first weeks 
Laid a mouldy pair o' her ain man's breeks 
By the brose o' Aiken-drum. 

Let the learn'd decide when they convene, 
What spell was him an' the breeks between • 
*or frae that day forth he was nae mair seen 
An sair miss'd was Aiken-drum. 

He was heard by a herd gaun by the Thrieve, 

v2Z g ' I t t ng ' bng n ? w . ma y I greet an' grieve ; 
J? or alas ! I hae gotten baith lee an' leave 
O luckless Aiken-drum !" 

Awa ! ye wrangling sceptic tribe, 
Wi your pro's an' your con's wad ye decide 
Gainst the sponsible voice o' a hale country-side 
On the facts 'bout Aiken-drum? 

Tho' the " Brownie o' Blednoch " lang be gane 
1 he mark o his feet's left on mony a stane • 
An mony a wife an' mony a wean 

Tell the feats o' Aiken-drum ! 

E'en now, licht loons that gibe an' sneer 

At spiritual guests an' a' sic gear, 

At the Glasnock mill hae swat wi' fear 

An' look'd roun' fur Aiken-drum. 



* A communion 
"nin" 
lame 



wan I 1 " "". , treasured b y *> z«I°»s disciple in the parish of Kirk? 



234 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

An' guidly folks hae gotten a fricht, 
When the moon was set, an' the stars gied nae licht, 
At the roaring linn in the howe. o' the nicht, 
Wi' sughs like Aiken-drum. 

We would rather have written these lines than any 
amount of Aurora Leighs, Festuses, or such like, with all 
their mighty " somethingness," as Mr. Bailey would say. 
For they, are they not the " native wood-notes wild" of 
one of nature's darlings ? Here is the indescribable, ines- 
timable, unmistakable impress of genius. Chaucer, had 
he been a Galloway man, might have written it, only he 
would have been more garrulous, and less compact and 
stern. It is like Tarn o' Shanter, in its living union of the 
comic, the pathetic, and the terrible. Shrewdness, ten- 
derness, imagination, fancy, humour, word-music, dra- 
matic power, even wit — all are here. I have often read it 
aloud to children, and it is worth any one's while to do it. 
You will find them repeating all over the house for days 
such lines as take their heart and tongue. 

The author of this noble ballad was William Nichol- 
son, the Galloway poet, as he was, and is still called in 
his own district. He was born at Tanimaus, in the par- 
ish of Borgue, in August 1783; he died circa 1848, un- 
seen, like a bird. Being extremely short-sighted, he was 
unfitted for being a shepherd or ploughman, and began 
life as a packman, like the hero of " the Excursion ;" and 
is still remembered in that region for his humour, his mu- 
sic, his verse, and his ginghams ; and also, alas ! for his 
misery and his sin. After travelling the country for thirty 
years, he became a packless pedlar, and fell into " a way 
of drinking ;" this led from bad to worse, and the grave 
closed in gloom over the ruins of a man of true genius. 
Mr. M'Diarmid of Dumfries prefixed a memoir of him to 
the Second Edition of his Tales in Verse and Miscella- 
neous Poems. These are scarcely known out of Gallo- 
way, but they are worth the knowing : none of them have 
the concentration and nerve of the Brownie, but they are 
from the same brain and heart. " The Country Lass/' a 
long poem, is excellent ; with much of Crabbe's power 
and compression. This, and the greater part of the vol- 




! 





* 




t 



r 



£be JBlacfc 2>warfs JBoncs. S33 

ume, is in the Scottish dialect, but there is a Fable — the 
Butterfly and Bee — the English and sense, the tine, deli- 
cate humour and turn of which might have been Cow- 
per's ; and there is a bit of rugged sarcasm called " Siller," 
which Burns need not have been ashamed of. Poor Nich- 
olson, besides his turn for verse, was an exquisite musi- 
cian, and sang with a powerful and sweet voice. One 
may imagine the delight of a lonely town-end, when Wil- 
lie the packman and the piper made his appearance, with 
his stories, and jokes, and ballads, his songs, and reels, 
and " wanton wiles." 

There is one story about him which has always appear- 
ed to me quite perfect. A farmer in a remote part of 
Galloway, one June morning before sunrise, was awaken- 
ed by music ; he had been dreaming of heaven, and when 
he found himself awake, he still heard the strains. He 
looked out, and saw no one, but at the corner of a grass 
field he saw his cattle, and young colts and fillies, hud- 
dled together, and looking intently down into what he 
knew was an old quarry. He put on his clothes, and 
walked across the field, everything but that strange wild 
melody, still and silent in this " the sweet hour of prime." 
As he got nearer the " beasts," the sound was louder, the 
colts with their long manes, and the nowt with their 
wondering stare, took no notice of him, straining their 
necks forward entranced. There, in the old quarry, the 
young sun "glintin' " on his face, and resting on his pack, 
which had been his pillow, was our Wandering Willie, 
playing and singing like an angel — " an Orpheus ; an 
Orpheus." WTiat a picture ! W r hen reproved for wast- 
ing his health and time by the prosaic farmer, the poor 
fellow said : " Me and this quarry are lang acquant, and 
I've mair pleasure in pipin' to thae daft cowts, than if the 
best leddies in the land were figurin' away afore me." 



236 Iborac Subsecfvae. 



With 231? A INS, Sir: 



" Multi mult a sciunt, panel multum" 

" It is one tiling to wish to have truth on our side, and another tiling 
to wisk to be on the side of truth.' 1 — Whately. 

'ATaAat7ro>pos toi? itoAAois r\ ^rJxTjcris rfj? aATji^eta?, /ecu £7rl Ta ironxa. 
ixakkov TpenovTai. — Thucydides. 

" The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind* only staves off our 

ignorance a little longer ; as, perhaps, the most perfect philosophy of 
the moral or metaphysical kind, serves only to discover larger portions 
of it." — David Hume. 

" PRAY, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix your colours 
with ?" said a brisk dilettante student to the great painter. 
" With Brains, Sir," was the gruff reply — and the right 
one. It did not give much of what we call information ; 
it did not expound the principles and rules of the art ; 
but, if the inquirer had the commodity referred to, it 
would awaken him ; it would set him a-going, a-thinking, 
and a-painting to good purpose. If he had not the 
wherewithal, as was likely enough, the less he had to do 
with colours and their mixture the better. Many other 
artists, when asked such a question, would have either set 
about detailing the mechanical composition of such and 
such colours, in such and such proportions, rubbed up so 
and so ; or perhaps they would (and so much the better, 
but not the best) have shown him how they laid them 
on ; but even this would leave him at the critical point. 
Opie preferred going to the quick and the heart of the 
matter: "With Brains, Sir." 

Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a 
picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it 
over with a keen and careful but favourable eye. " Capi- 
tal composition ; correct drawing ; the colour, tone, 



"TWUtb Eratas, Sir." 237 

chiaroscuro excellent; but — but — it wants, hang it, it 
wants — That!" snapping his fingers; and, wanting 
"that," though it had everything else, it was worth 
nothing. 

Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of 
the Royal Academy, having been preceded by a clever, 
talkative, scientific expounder of aesthetics, who delighted 
to tell the young men how everything was done, how to 
copy this and how to express that. A student came up to 
the new master, " How should I do this, Sir ?" " Suppose 
you try." Another, '"What does this mean, Mr. Etty?" 
" Suppose you look." " But I have looked." " Suppose 
you look again." And they did try, and they did look, 
and 'looked again ; and they saw and achieved what they 
never could have done, had the how or the what (suppos- 
ing this possible, which it is not in its full and highest 
meaning) been told them, or done for them ; in the one 
case, sight and action were immediate, exact, intense, 
and secure; in the other, mediate, feeble, and lost as 
soon as gained. But what are " Brains f" what did 
Opie mean? and what is Sir Joshua's " That?" What 
is included in it ? and what is the use, or the need of 
trying and trying, of missing often before you hit, when 
you can be told at once and be done with it ; or of look- 
ing when you may be shown ? Everything in medicine 
and in painting — practical arts — as means to ends, let 
their scientific enlargement be ever so rapid and immense, 
depends upon the right answers to these questions. 

First of all, " brains," in the painter, are not diligence, 
knowledge, skill, sensibility, a strong will, or a high aim, 
— he may have all these, and never paint anything so 
truly good and effective as the rugged woodcut we must 
all remember, of Apollyon bestriding the whole breadth 
of the way, and Christian girding at him like a man, in 
the old sixpenny Pilgrim' s Progress ; and a young med- 
ical student may have zeal, knowledge, ingenuity, atten- 
tion, a good eye and a steady hand — he may be an 
accomplished anatomist, stethoscopist, histologist, and 
analyst ; and yet, with all this, and all the lectures, and 
all the books, and all the sayings, and all the preparations, 
drawings, tables, and other helps of his teachers, crowded 



238 Iborae Subsecivae. 

into his memory or his notebooks, he may be beaten at 
treating a whitlow or a colic, by the nurse in the wards 
where he was clerk, or by the old country doctor who 
brought him into the world, and who listens with such 
humble wonder to his young friend's account, on his 
coming home after each session, of all he had seen and 
done, — of all the last astonishing discoveries and opera- 
tions of the day. What the painter wants, in addition to, 
and as the complement of, the other elements, isgem'us 
and sense; what the doctor needs to crown and give 
worth and safety to his accomplishments, is sense and 
genius : in the first case, more of this, than of that ; in 
the second, more of that, than of this. These are the 
"Brains" and the " That" 

And what is genius ? and what is sense ? Genius is a 
peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling 
or pursuit over all others. A man may have a genius 
for governing, for killing, or for curing the greatest num- 
ber of men, and in the best possible manner : a man may 
have a genius for the fiddle, or his mission may be for 
the tight-rope, or the Jew's harp ; or it may be a natural 
turn for seeking, and finding, and teaching truth, and for 
doing the greatest possible good to mankind ; or it may 
be a turn equally natural for seeking, and finding, and 
teaching a lie, and doing the maximum of mischief. It 
was as natural, as inevitable, for Wilkie to develop him- 
self into a painter, and such a painter as we know him 
to have been, as it is for an acorn when planted to 
grow up into an oak, a specific (luercus robur. But 
genius, and nothing else, is not enough, even for a 
painter: he must likewise have sense ; and what is sense? 
Sense drives, or ought to drive, the coach ; sense regulates, 
combines, restrains, commands, all the rest — even the 
genius ; and sense implies exactness and soundness, 
power and promptitude of mind. 

Then for the young doctor, he must have as his main, 
his master faculty, SENSE — Brains — vovc, justness of mind, 
because his subject-matter is one in which principle works, 
rather than impulse, as in painting; the understanding 
has first to do with it, however much it is worthy of the 
full exercise of the feelings and the affections. But all 



'"CMitb drains, Sir." 239 

will not do, if GENIUS is not. there. — a real turn for the 
profession. It may not be a liking for it— some of the 
best of its practitioners never really liked it, at least liked 
other things better ; but there must be a fitness of faculty 
of body and mind for its full, constant, exact pursuit. 
This sense and this genius, such a special therapeutic 
gift, had Hippocrates, Sydenham, Pott, Pinel, John Hun- 
ter, Delpech, Uupuytren, Kellie, Cheyne, Baillie, and 
Abercrombie. We might, to pursue the subject, pick out 
painters who had much genius and little or no sense, and 
vice versa ; and physicians and surgeons, who had sense 
without genius, and genius without sense, and some per- 
haps who had neither, and yet were noticeable, and, in 
their own side-wavs, useful men. 

But our great object will be gained if we have given our 
young readers (and these remarks are addressed exclu- 
sively to students) any idea of what we mean, if w r e have 
made them think, and look inwards. The noble and 
sacred science you have entered on is large, difficult, and 
deep, beyond most others ; it is every day becoming 
larger, deeper, and in many senses more difficult, more 
complicated and involved. It requires more than the 
average intellect, energy, attention, patience, and courage, 
and that singular but imperial quality, at once a gift and 
an acquirement, presence of mind — ayx'tvoia, or nearness 
of the vovg, as the subtle Greeks called it — than almost any 
other department of human thought and action, except 
perhaps that of ruling men. Therefore it is, that we hold 
it to be of paramount importance that the parents, teach- 
ers, and friends of youths intended for medicine, and above 
all, that those who examine them on their entering on 
their studies, should at least (we might safely go much 
further) satisfy themselves as far as they can, that they are 
not below par in intelligence ; they may be deficient and 
unapt qua medici, and yet, if taken in time, may make 
excellent men in other useful and honourable callings. 

But suppose we have got the requisite amount and spe- 
cific kind of capacity, how are we to fill it with its means ; 
how are we to make it effectual for its end ? On this 
point we say nothing, except that the fear now-a-days, is 
rather that the mind gets too much of too many things, 



240 Iborae Subsectvae. 

than too little or too few. But this means of turning 
knowledge to action, making it what Bacon meant when 
he said it was power, invigorating the thinking substance 
— giving tone, and you may call it muscle and nerve, blood 
and bone, to the mind — a firm gripe, and a keen and sure 
eye : that, we think, is far too little considered or cared 
for at present, as if the mere act of filling in everything 
for ever into a poor lad's brain, would give him the ability 
to make anything of it, and above all, the power to appro- 
priate the small portions of true nutriment, and reject the 
dregs. 

One comfort we have, that in the main, and in the last 
resort, there is really very little that can be done for any 
man by another. Begin with the sense and the genius — 
the keen appetite and the good digestion — and, amid all 
obstacles and hardships, the work goes on merrily and 
well ; without these, we all know what a laborious affair, 
and a dismal, it is to make an incapable youth apply. Did 
any of you ever set yourselves to keep up artificial respi- 
ration, or to trudge about for a whole night with a narco- 
tized victim of opium, or transfused blood (your own, per- 
haps) into a poor, fainting, exanimate wretch ? If so, you 
will have some idea of the heartless attempt, and its gen- 
erally vain and miserable result, to make a dull student 
apprehend, a debauched, interested, knowing, or active in 
anything beyond the base of his brain — a weak, etiolated 
intellect hearty, and worth anything ; and yet how many 
such are dragged through their dreary curricula, and by 
some miraculous process of cramming, and equally mi- 
raculous power of turning their insides out, get through 
their examinations : and then — what then ? providentially, 
in most cases, they find their level ; the broad daylight of 
the world — its shrewd and keen eye, its strong instinct of 
what can, and what cannot serve its purpose — puts all, 
except the poor object himself, to rights,; happy is it for 
him if he turns to some new and more congenial pursuit 
in time. 

But it may be asked, how are the brains to be strength- 
ened, the sense quickened, the genius awakened, the af- 
fections raised — the whole man turned to the best ac- 
count for the cure of his fellow-men? How are you, 



"TOlttb drains, Sir." 24 1 

when physics and physiology are increasing so marvel- 
lously, and when the burden of knowledge, the quantity 
of transferable information, of registered facts, of current 
names — and such names! — is so infinite : how are you to 
enable a. student to take all in, bear up under all, and 
use it as not abusing it, or being abused by it ? You 
must invigorate the containing and sustaining mind, you 
must strengthen him from within, as well as fill him from 
without ; you must discipline, nourish, edify, relieve, and 
refresh his entire nature ; and how ? We have no time to 
go at large into this, but we will indicate what we mean : 
— encourage languages, especially French and German, 
at the early part of their studies ; encourage not merely 
the book knowledge, but the personal pursuit of natural 
history, of field botany, of geology, of zoology ; give the 
young, fresh, unforgetting eye, exercise and free scope 
upon the infinite diversity and combination of natural 
colours, forms, substances, surfaces, weights, and sizes — 
everything, in a word, that will educate their eye or ear, 
their touch, taste, and smell, their sense of muscular re- 
sistance ; encourage them by prizes, to make skeletons, 
preparations, and collections of any natural objects ; and, 
above all, try and get hold of their affections, and make 
them put their hearts into their work. Let them, if pos- 
sible, have the advantage of a regulated tutorial, as well 
as the ordinary professorial system. Let there be no 
excess in the number of classes and frequency of lec- 
tures. Let them be drilled in composition ; by this we 
mean the writing and spelling of correct plain English (a 
matter not of every-day occurrence, and not on the in- 
crease) — let them be directed to the best books of the old 
masters in medicine, and examined in them, — let them be 
encouraged in the use of a wholesome and manly litera- 
ture. We do not mean popular or even modern literature 
— such as Emerson, Bulwer, or Alison, or the trash of in- 
ferior periodicals or novels — fashion, vanity, and the 
spirit of the age, will attract them readily enough to all 
these; we refer to the treasures of our elder and better 
authors. If our young medical student would take our 
advice, and for an hour or two twice a week take up a 
volume of Shakspere, Cervantes, Milton, Dryden, Pope, 



242 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

Cowper, Montaigne, Addison, Defoe, Goldsmith, Fielding, 
Scott, Charles Lamb, Macaulay, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, 
Helps, Thackeray, etc., not to mention authors on deeper 
and more sacred subjects — they would have happier and 
healthier minds, and make none the worse doctors. If 
they, by good fortune — for the tide has set in strong 
against the Uteres humimiores — have come off with some 
Greek or Latin, we would supplicate for an ode of Horace, 
a couple of pages of Cicero or of Pliny once a month, and 
a page of Xenophon. French and German should be 
mastered either before or during the first years of study. 
They will never afterwards be acquired so easily or so 
thoroughly, and the want of them may be bitterly felt 
when too late. 

But one main help, we are persuaded, is to be found in 
studying — and by this we do not mean the mere reading, 
but the digging into and through, the energizing upon, 
and mastering— such books as we have mentioned at the 
close of this paper. These are not, of course, the only 
works we would recommend to those who wish to under- 
stand thoroughly, and to make up their minds, on these 
great subjects as wholes ; but we all know too well that 
our Art is long, broad, and deep, — and Time, opportunity, 
and our little hour, brief and uncertain, therefore, we 
would recommend those books as a sort of game of the 
mind, a mental exercise— like cricket, a gymnastic, a clear- 
ing of the eyes of their mind as with euphrasy, a strength- 
ening their power over particulars, a getting fresh, strong 
views of worn out, old things, and, above all, a learning 
the right use of their reason, and by knowing their own 
ignorance and weakness, finding true knowledge and 
strength. Taking up a book like Arnauld, and reading a 
chapter of his lively, manly sense, is like throwing your 
manuals, and scalpels, and microscopes, and natural (most 
unnatural) orders out of your hand and head, and taking 
a game with the Grange Club, or a run to the top of 
Arthur Seat. Exertion quickens your pulse, expands 
your lungs, makes your blood warmer and redder, fills 
your mouth with the pure waters of relish, strengthens 
and supples your legs ; and though on your way to the 
top you may encounter rocks, and baffling debris, and 



" Mitb drains, Sir/' 243 

gusts of fierce winds rushing out upon you from behind 
corners, just as you will find in Arnauld, and all truly 
serious and honest books of the kind, difficulties and 
puzzles, winds of doctrine, and deceitful mists ; still you 
are rewarded at the top by the wide view. You see, as 
from a tower, the end of all. You look into the perfections 
and relations of things. You see the clouds, the bright 
lights, and the everlasting hills on the far horizon. You 
come down the hill a happier, a better, and a hungrier 
man, and of a better mind. But, as we said, you must 
eat the book, you must crush it, and cut it with your teeth 
and swallow it ; just as you must walk up, and not be 
carried up the hill, much less imagine you are there, or 
look upon a picture of what you would see were you up, 
however accurately or artistically done ; no — you your- 
self must do both. 

Philosophy — the love and the possession of wisdom — is 
divided into two things, science or knowledge ; and a habit, 
or power of mind. He who has got the first is not truly 
wise unless his mind has reduced and assimilated it, as 
Dr. Prout would have said, unless he appropriates and can 
use it for his need. 

The prime qualifications of a phvsician may be summed 
up in the words Capax, Pcrspicax, Sagax, Ejficax, 
Capax — there must be room to receive, and arrange, and 
keep knowledge ; Perspicax — senses and perceptions, 
keen, accurate, and immediate, to bring in materials from 
all sensible things ; Sagax — a central power of knowing 
what is what, and what it is worth, of choosing and re- 
jecting, of judging ; and finally, Efficax — the will and the 
way — the power to turn all the other three — capacity, 
perspicacity, sagacity, to account, in the performance of 
the outer world, in a new and useful form, what you had 
received from it. These are the intellectual qualities 
which make up the physician, without any one of which 
he would be mancus, and would not deserve the name of 
a complete artsman, any more than proteine would be it- 
self if any one of its four elements were amissing. 

We have left ourselves no room to speak of the books 
we have named at the end of this paper. \Ye recommend 
them all to our young readers. Arnauld's excellent and 



244 Iborae Subsecivae. 

entertaining Art of Thinking — the once famous Port- 
Royal Logic — is, if only one be taken, probably the best. 
Thomson's little book is admirable, and is specially suited 
for a medical student, as its illustrations are drawn with 
great intelligence and exactness from chemistry and 
physiology. We know nothing more perfect than the 
analysis, at page 348, of Sir H. Davy's beautiful experi- 
ments to account for the traces of an alkali, found when 
decomposing water by galvanism. It is quite exquisite, 
the hunt after and the unearthing of " the residual 
cause." This book has the great advantage of a clear, 
lively, and strong style. We can only give some short 
extracts. 

" We may define the inductive method as the process 
of discovering laws and rules from facts, and causes from 
effects : and the deductive, as the method of deriving 
facts from laws, and effects from their causes." 

There is a valuable paragraph on anticipation and its 
uses — there is a power and desire of the mind to project 
itself from the known into the unknown, in the expecta- 
tion of finding what it is in search of. 

" This power of divination, this sagacity, which is the 
mother of all science, we may call anticipation. The 
intellect, with a dog-like instinct, will not hunt until it 
has found the scent. It must have some presage of the 
result before it will turn its energies to its attainment. 
The system of anatomy which has immortalized the name 
of Oken, is the consequence of a flash of anticipation, 
which glanced through his mind when he picked up, in a 
chance walk, the skull of a deer, bleached by the weather, 
and exclaimed — ' // is a vertebral column /' " 

" The man" of science possesses principles — the man of 
art, not the less nobly gifted, is possessed and carried 
away by them. The principles which art im'olves, science 
evolves. The truths on which the su cess of art depends 
lurk in the artist's mind in an undeveloped state, guiding 
his hand, stimulating his invention, balancing his judg- 
ment, but not appearing in regular propositions." " An art 
(that of medicine for instance) will of course admit into 
its limits, everything {and nothing) else which can conduce 



"TlCUtb drains, Sir/* 245 

to the performance of its own proper work ; it recognises 
no other principles of selection." 

" He who reads a book on logic, probably thinks no 
better when he rises up than when he sat down, but if any 
of the principles there unfolded cleave to his memory, 
and he afterwards, perhaps unconsciously, shapes and 
corrects his thoughts by them, no doubt the whole powers 
of his reasoning receive benefit. In a word, every art, 
from reasoning to riding and rowing, is learned by 
assiduous practice, and if principles do any good, it is 
proportioned to the readiness with which they can be con- 
verted into rules, and the patient constancy with which 
they are applied in all cur attempts at excellence." 

" A man can teach names to another man, but he can- 
not plant in another's mind that far higher gift — the 

power of naming" 

" Language is not only t/ie vehicle of thought, it is a 
great and efficient instrument in thinking." 

" The whole of science may be made the subject of 
teaching. Not so with art ; much of it is not teachable." 

Coleridge's profound and brilliant, but unequal, and 
often somewhat nebulous Essay on Method, is worth 
reading over, were it only as an exercitation, and to im- 
press on the mind the meaning and value of method. 
Method is the road by which you reach, or hope to reach, 
a certain end ; it is a process. It is the best direction for 
the search after truth. System, again, which is often 
confounded with it, is a mapping out, a circumscription 
of knowledge, either already gained, or theoretically laid 
down as probable. Aristotle had a system which did 
much good, but also much mischief. Bacon was chiefly 
occupied in preparing and pointing out the way — the only 
way — of procuring knowledge. He left to others to sys- 
tematize the knowledge after it was got ; but the pride 
and indolence of the human spirit lead it constantly to 
build systems on imperfect knowledge. It has the trick of 
filling up out of its own fancy what it has not the dili- 
gence, the humility, and the honesty, to seek in nature; 
whose servant, and articulate voice, it ought to be. 



246 Iborae Subsedvae. 

Descartes' little tract on Method is, like everything tne 
lively and deep-souled Breton did, full of original and 
bright thought. 

Sir John Herschel's volume needs no praise. We know- 
no work of the sort, fuller of the best moral worth, as 
well as the highest philosophy. We fear it is more talked 
of than read. 

We would recommend the article in the Quarterly Re- 
view as first-rate, and written with great eloquence and 
grace. 

Sydney Smith's Sketches of Lectures on Moral Phi- 
losophy. Second Edition. 

Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies at Cambridge, 
with a Preface and Appendix. Sixth Edition. 

We have put these two worthies here, not because we 
had forgotten them, — much less because we think less of 
them than the others, especially Sydney ; but because we 
bring them in at the end of our small entertainment, as 
we hand round a liqueur — be it Curac,oa, Kimmel, or old 
Glenlivet — after dinner, and end with the heterogeneous 
plum-pudding, that most English of realized ideas. 
Sydney Smith's book is one of rare excellence, and well 
worthy of the study of men and women, though perhaps 
not transcendental enough for our modern philosophers, 
male and female. It is really astonishing how much of 
the best of everything, from patriotism to nonsense, is to 
be found in this volume of sketches. You may read it 
through, if your sides can bear such an accumulation of 
laughter, with great benefit ; and if you open it anywhere, 
you can't read three sentences without coming across 
some, it may be common thought, and often original 
enough, better expressed and put than you ever before 
saw it. The lectures on the Affections, the Passions and 
Desires, and on Study, we would have everybody to read 
and enjoy. 

Sedgwick is a different, and, as a whole, an inferior 
man ; but a man every inch of him, and an Englishman 
too, in his thoughts, and in his fine mother wit and tongue. 
He has, in the midst of all his confusion and passionate- 
ness, the true instinct of philosophy — the true venatic sense 



" TiCUtb drains, Sir." 247 

of objective truth. We know nothing better in the main. 
than his demolition of what is untrue, and his reduction of 
what is absurd, and his taking the wind out of what is 
tympanitic, in the notorious Vestiges; we don't say he 
always does justice to what is really good in it ; his mis- 
sion is to execute justice upon it, and that he does. His 
remarks on Oken and Owen, and his quotations from Dr. 
Clarke's admirable paper on the Development of the Foetus^ 
in the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions, we would 
recommend to our medical friends. The very confusion of 
Sedgwick is the free outcome of a deep and racy nature ; 
it puts us in mind of what happened, when an Englishman 
was looking with astonishment and disgust at a Scotchman 
eating a singed sheep's head, and was asked by the eater 
what he thought of that dish? "Dish, Sir, do you call 
that a dish?" "Dish or no dish," rejoined the Caledo- 
nian, "there's a deal o'fine confused feedin' aboot it, let 
me tell you." 

We conclude these rambling remarks with a quotation 
from Arnauld, the friend of Pascal, and the intrepid 
antagonist of the Vatican and the Grand Monarque ; one 
of the noblest, freest, most untiring and honest intellects 
our world has ever seen. " Why don't you rest some- 
times ?" said his friend Nicole to him. " Rest ! why 
should I rest here? haven't I an eternity to rest in?" 
The following sentence from his Port-Royal Logic, so 
well introduced and translated by Mr. Baynes, contains 
the gist of all we have been trying to say. It should be 
engraven on the tablets of every young student's heart — 
for the heart has to do with study as well as the head. 

" There is nothing more desirable than good sense and 
justness of mind, — all other qualities of mind are of 
limited use, but exactness of judgment is of general 
utility in every part and in all employments of life. 

" We are too aft to employ reason merely as an instru- 
ment for acquiring the sciences, whereas we ouglit to 
avail ourselves of the sciences, as an instrument for 
perfecting our reason ; justness of mind being infinitely 
more important than all the speculative knowledge which 
we can obtain by means of sciences the most solid. This 
ought to lead wise men to make their sciences the exer- 



248 Iborae Subaecfvae. 

cise and not the occupation of their mental powers. Men 
are not born to employ all their time in measuring lines. 
in considering the various movements of matter: their 
minds are too great, and their lives too short, their time 
too precious, to be so engrossed ; but they are born to 
be just, equitable, and prudent, in all their thoughts, their 
actions, their business ; to these things they ought espe- 
cially to train and discipline themselves." 

So, young friends, bring Brains to your work, and mix 
everythiag with them, and them with everything. Arma 
virumque, tools and a man to use them. Stir up, direct, 
and give free scope to Sir Joshua's "that," and try again, 
and again ; and look, oculo intento, acie acerrimd. 
Looking is a voluntary act, — it is the man within coming 
to the window ; seeing is a state, — passive and receptive, 
and, at the best, little more than registrative. 

Since writing the above, we have read with great sat- 
isfaction Dr. Forbes's Lecture delivered before the Chi- 
chester Literary Society and Mechanics' Institute, and 
published at their request. Its subject is, Happiness in 
its relation to Work and Knowledge. It is worthy of its 
author, and is, we think, more largely and finely embued 
with his personal character, than any one other of his 
works that we have met with. We could not wish a fitter 
present for a young man starting on the game of life. 1 1 
is a wise, cheerful, manly, and warm-hearted discourse 
on the words of Bacon, — " He that is wise, let him pursue 
some desire or other ; for he that doth not affect some 
one thing in chief, unto him all things are distasteful and 
tedious." We will not spoil this little volume by giving 
any account of it. Let our readers get it, and read it. 
The extracts from his Thesis, De Mentis Exerciiat :0:2c 
et Felicitate exinde derzvandd, are very curious — show- 
ing the native vigour and bent of his mind, and indicating 
also, at once the identity and the growth of his thoughts 
during the lapse of thirty-three years. 

We give the last paragraph, the sense and the filial 
affection of which are alike admirable. Having men- 
tioned to his hearers that they saw in himself a living illus- 
tration of the truth of his position — that happiness is a nec- 
essary result of knowledge and work, he thus concludes : — 



'"UlUtb drains, Sir," 249 

" If you would further desire to know to what besides I 
am chiefly indebted for so enviable a lot, I would say : — 
ist, Because I had the good fortune to come into the 
world with a healthful frame, and with a sanguine tem- 
perament. 2d, Because I had no patrimony, and was 
therefore obliged to trust to my own exertions for a liveli- 
hood. 3d, Because I was born in a land where instruc- 
tion is greatly prized and readily accessible. 4th, Because 
I was brought up to a profession which not only com- 
pelled mental exercise, but supplied for its use materials 
of the most delightful and varied kind. And lastly and 
principally, because the good man to whom I owe my 
existence, had the foresight to know what would be best 
for his children. He had the wisdom, and the courage, 
and the exceeding love, to bestow all that could be spared 
of his worldly means, to purchase for his sons that 
which is beyond price, EDUCATION; well judging that 
the means so expended, if hoarded for future use, would 
be, if not valueless, certainly evanescent, while the 
precious treasure for which they were exchanged, a culti- 
vated and instructed mind, would not only last through 
life, but might be the fruitful source of treasures far more 
precious than itself. So equipped he sent them forth into 
the world to fight Life's battle, leaving the issue in the 
hand of God ; confident, however, that though they might 
fail to achieve renown or to conquer Fortune, they pos- 
sessed that which, if rightly used, could win for them the 
yet higher prize of HAPPINESS." 

Since this was written, many good books have ap- 
peared, but we would select three, which all young men 
should read, and get — Hartley Coleridge's Lives of North- 
ern Worthies, Thackeray's Letters of Brown the Elder, 
and Tom Brown's Schooldays — in spirit and expression, 
we don't know any better models for manly courage, 
good sense, and feeling, and they are as well written as 
they are thought. 

There are the works of another man, one of the great- 
est, not only of our, but of any time, to which we cannot 
too earnestly draw our young readers. We mean the 
philosophical writings of Sir William Hamilton. We 
know no more invigorating, quickening, rectifying kind of 



250 Iborae Subeecivae. 

exercise, than reading with a will, anything he has written 
upon permanently important subjects. There is a great- 
ness and simplicity, a closeness of thought, a glance keen 
and wide, a play of the entire nature, and a truthfulness 
and downrightness, with an amount, and accuracy, and 
vivification of learning, such as we know of in no one 
other writer, ancient or modern — not even Leibnitz ; and 
we know no writings which so wholesomely at once exalt 
and humble the reader, make him feel what is in him, and 
what he can and may, as well as what he cannot, and 
need never hope to know. In this respect, Hamilton is as 
grand as Pascal, and more simple ; he exemplifies every- 
where his own sublime adaptation of Scripture— unless a 
man become a little child, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom ; he enters the temple stooping, but he presses on, 
intrepid and alone, to the inmost adytum, worshipping the 
more the nearer he gets to the inaccessible shrine, whose 
vail no mortal hand has ever rent in twain. And 
we name after him, the thoughtful, candid, impressive 
little volume of his pupil, and his successor, Professor 
Fraser. 

The following passage from Sir William Hamilton's 
Dissertations, besides its wise thought, sounds in the 
ear like the pathetic and majestic sadness of a symphony 
by Beethoven : — 

" There are two sorts of ignorance : we philosophize to 
escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philos- 
ophy is ignorance ; we start from the one, we repose in 
the other ; they are the goals from which, and to which, 
we tend ; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course 
between two ignorances as human life is itself only a 
travelling from grave to grave. 

Ti's /3tos ; — 'E/c tiV/3oio #opu>i', en-i tv/x^ov oSeuw. 

The highest reach of human science is the scientific 
recognition of human ignorance ; ' Qui nescit ignorare, 
ignorat scire.' This ' learned ignorance ' is the rational 
conviction by the human mind of its inability to transcend 
certain limits ; it is the knowledge of ourselves, — the 
science of man. This is accomplished by a demonstra- 
tion of the disproportion between what is to be known, 



" TOtb Brains, Sit." 251 

and our faculties of knowing, — the disproportion, to wit, 
between the infinite and the finite. In fact, the recogni- 
tion of human ignorance is not only the one highest, but 
the one true, knowledge ; and its first-fruit, as has been 
said, is humility. Simple nescience is not proud ; con- 
summated science is positively humble. For this knowl- 
edge it is not, which ' puffeth up ; ' but its opposite, the 
conceit of false knowledge, — the conceit, in truth, as the 
apostle notices, of an ignorance of the very nature of 
knowledge : — 

1 Nam nesciens quid scire sit, 
Te scire cuncta jactitas.' 

"■ But as our knowledge stands to Ignorance, so stands 
it also to Doubt. Doubt is the beginning and the end of 
our efforts to know ; for as it is true, — ' Alte dubitat qui 
altius credit,' so it is likewise true, — ' Quo magisquaerimus 
magis dubitamus/ 

" The grand result of human wisdom is thus only a 
consciousness that what we know is as nothing to what 
we know not, (' Quantum est quod nescimus ! ') — an artic- 
ulate confession, in fact, by our natural reason, of the 
truth declared in revelation, that ' now we see through a 
glass darkly.' " 

His pupil writes in the same spirit and to the same 
end : — " A discovery, by means of reflection and mental 
experiment, of the limits of knowledge, is the highest and 
most universally applicable discovery of all ; it is the one 
through which our intellectual life most strikingly blends 
with the moral and practical part of human nature. Prog- 
ress in knowledge is often paradoxically indicated by a 
diminution in the apparent bulk of what we know. 
Whatever helps to work off the dregs of false opinion, 
and to purify the intellectual mass — whatever deepens our 
conviction of our infinite ignorance — really adds to, al- 
though it sometimes seems to diminish, the rational 
possessions of man. This is the highest kind of merit 
that is claimed for Philosophy by its earliest as well as by 
its latest representatives. It is by this standard that 
Socrates and Kant measure the chief results of their 
toil." 



252 Iborae Subsectvae. 

BOOKS REFERRED TO. 

i. Arnauld's Port-Royal Logic ; translated by T. S. Baynes. — 2. Thom- 
son's Outlines of the Necessary Laws of Thought. — 3. Descartes on the 
Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the 
Sciences. — 4. Coleridge's Essay on Method. — 5. Whately's Logic and 
Rhetoric; new and cheap edition. — 6. Mill's Logic; new and cheap edi- 
tion. — 7. Dugald Stewart's Outlines. — 8. Sir John Herschel's Preliminary 
Dissertation. — 9. Quarterly Review, vol. lxviii.; Article upon Whewell's 
Philosophy of Inductive Sciences. — 10. Isaac Taylor's Elements of 
Thought. — n. Sir William Hamilton's edition of Reid ; Dissertations ; 
and Lectures. — 12. Professor Fraser's Rational Philosophy. — 13. Locke on 
the Conduct of the Understanding. 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 253 



ARTHUR H. HALLAM. 



" Pr.-esens imperfectum,—perfectum y plusquamperfectum Futurum." 
— Grotius. 

" The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep 
Into my study of imagination ; 
A nd every lovely organ of thy life 
Shall conic apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of my soul, 
Than when thou livedst indeed." 

Mich Ado about Nothing. 

In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, 
rest the mortal remains of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest 
son of our great philosophic historian and critic, — and the 
friend to whom /;/ Memoriam is sacred. This place 
was selected by his father, not only from the connexion 
of kindred, being the burial-place of his maternal grand- 
father, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise " on account of 
its still and sequestered* situation, on a lone hill that 
overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its 
humble old church, its outlook over the waste of waters, 
where " the stately ships go on," was, we doubt not, in 
Tennyson's mind, when the poem, " Break, break, break," 
which contains the burden of that volume in which are 
enshrined so much of the deepest affection, poetry, phi- 
losophy, and godliness, rose into his " study of imagina- 
tion" — "into the eye and prospect of his soul."* 

41 Break, break, break, 

On thy cold grey stones, O sea ! 



* The passage from Shakspere prefixed to this paper, contains prob- 
ably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than the affectionate 
conditions, under which such a record as In Memoriam is produced, and 
may give us more insight into the imaginative faculty's mode of working, 
than all our philosophizing and analysis. It seems to let out with the ful- 
ness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a child — " Fancy's Child" — the 
secret mechanism or procession of the greatest creative mind our race has 



254 iborae Subsecivae. 

And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

" O well for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
O well for the sailor lad 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

"And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ! 
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

41 Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me." 



produced. In itself, it has no recondite meaning, it answers fully its own 
sweet purpose. We are not believers, like some folks, in the omniscience 
of even Shakspere. But, like many things that he and other wise men 
and many simple children say, it has a germ of universal meaning, which 
it is quite lawful to bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to the full 
without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A dew-drop is 
not the less beautiful that it illustrates in xts structure the law of gravita- 
tion which holds the world together, and by which " the most ancient 
heavens are fresh and strong." This is the passage. The Friar speaking 
of Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his words," says — 

" The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
Into his study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of her life 
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit — 
More moving delicate, and full of life, 
Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
Than when she lived indeed." 

We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of 
the beloved dead, rising upon the past, hke moonlight upon midnight, — 

" The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme." 

This is its simple meaning — the statement of a truth, the utterance of per- 
sonal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance — it is the 
revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the dead ele- 
ments of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and so breathhd 
upon as to be quickened into ja new and higher life. We have first the 
Idea of her Life — all he remembered and felt of her, gathered into one 
vague shadowy image, not any one look, or action, or time,— then the idea 
of her life creeps — is in before he is aware, and sweetly creeps — it might 
have been softly or gently, but it is the addition of affection to all this, 
and bringing in another sense, — and now it is in his study of imagination 
— what a place! fit for such a visitor. Then out comes the. Idea, more 
particular, more questionable, but still ideal, spiritual — every lovely organ 
of her life — then the clothing upon, the mortal putting on its immortal, 
spiritual body — shall conic apparelled in more precious habit, more mov- 
ing delicate — this is the transfiguring, the putting on strength, the poco 
pit — the little more which makes immortal, — more full of I 'ij <?, and all 
this submitted to — the eye and prospect of the soul. 



Brtbur 1b. IbaUam. 255 

Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, 
and sounding as the sea, as out of a well of the living 
waters of love, flows forth all In Memoriam, as a stream 
flows out of its spring — all is here. " I would that my 
tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me," — " the 
touch of the vanished hand — the sound of the voice that is 
still," — the body and soul of his friend. Rising as it were 
out of the midst of the gloom of the valley of the shadow 
bf death, 

" The mountain Infant to the sun comes forth 
Like human life from darkness ;" 

and how its waters flow on ! carrying life, beauty, mag- 
nificence, — shadows and happy lights, depths of blackness, 
depths clear as the very body of heaven. How it deepens 
as it goes, involving larger interests, wider views, 
" thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affec- 
tions, but still retaining its pure living waters, its 
unforgotten burden of love and sorrow. How it visits 
every region ! " the long unlovely street," pleasant 
villages and farms, " the placid ocean-plains," waste 
howling wildernesses, grim woods, nemorumque noctem, 
informed with spiritual fears, where may be seen, if shapes 
they may be called — 

" Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight ; Death the Skeleton, 
And Time the Shadow ;" 

now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the 
College bells, and the vague hum of the mighty city. 
And over head through all its course the heaven with its 
clouds, its sun, moon, and stars ; but always, and in all 
places, declaring its source ; and even when laying its 
burden of manifold and faithful affection at the feet of the 
Almighty Father, still remembering whence it came, 

" That friend of mine who lives in God, 

That God which ever lives and loves ; 

One God, one law, one element, 

And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January 1834, 
'that he refers in poem xvm. of In Mcmoriam. 



256 t>orae Subsecivae. 

'"Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 
The violet of his native land. 

" 'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 
As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest, 
And in the places of his youth." 

And again in XIX. : 

" The Danube to the Severn gave 

The darken'd heart that beat no more ; 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 
And in the hearing of the wave. 

" There twice a day the Severn fills, 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
And makes a silence in the hills." 

Here, too, it is, lxvi. : 

" When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest, 
By that broad water of the west ; 
There comes a glory on the walls : 

11 Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name, 
And o'er the number of thy years." 

This young man, whose memory his friend has conse- 
crated in the hearts of all who can be touched by such love 
and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of all this. It is not 
for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad privilege 
to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in 
that grave, all " the hopes of unaccomplished years ;" nor 
can we feel in its fulness all that is meant by 

"Such 
A friendship as had mastered Time ; 
Which masters Time indeed, and is 

Eternal, separate from fears. 

The all-assuming months and years 
Can take no part away from this." 

But this we may say, we know of nothing in all literature 
to compare with the volume from which these lines are 



Brtbur 1b. Dallam. 257 

taken, since David lamented with this lamentation : " The 
beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let 
there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am distressed 
for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast thou 
been unto me ; thy love for me was wonderful." We 
cannot, as some have done, compare it with Shakspere's 
sonnets, or with Lycidas. In spite of the amazing- genius 
and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reitera- 
tion of passionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring - 
love, the rapturous devotedness, displayed in these son- 
nets, we cannot but agree with Mr. Hallam in thinking 
" that there is a tendency now, especially among young 
men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of 
these remarkable productions ;" and though we would 
hardly say with him, " that it is impossible not to wish 
that Shakspere had never written them," giving us, as 
they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such 
proof of a power of loving, of an amount of attendrisse- 
mefit, which is not less wonderful than the bodying forth 
of that myriad-mind which gave us Hamlet, and Lear, 
Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed explain- 
ing to us how he could give us all these ; — while we 
hardly go so far, we agree with his other wise words : — 
"There is a weakness and folly in all misplaced and ex- 
cessive affection ;" which in Shakspere's case is the more 
distressing, when we consider that " Mr. W. H., the only 
begetter of these ensuing sonnets," was, in all likelihood. 
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man of noble and 
gallant character, but always of licentious life. 

As for Lycidas, we must confess that the poetry — and 
we all know how consummate it is — and not the affection, 
seems uppermost in Milton's mind, as it is in ours. The 
other element, though quick and true, has no glory through 
reason of the excellency of that which invests it. But 
there is no such drawback in /;/ Memoriam. The purity, 
the temperate but fervent goodness, the firmness and 
depth of nature, the impassioned logic, the large, sensi- 
tive, and liberal heart, the reverence and godly fear, of 

" That friend of mine who lives in God, 11 

which from these Remains we know to have dwelt in that 



258 Iborae Subeectvae. 

young soul, give to In Memoriam the character of exact- 
est portraiture. There is no excessive or misplaced 
affection here ; it is all founded in fact : while everywhere 
and throughout it all, affection — a love that is wonderful — 
meets us first and leaves us last, giving form and sub- 
stance and grace, and the breath of life and love, to 
everything that the poet's thick-coming fancies so ex- 
quisitely frame. We can recall few poems approaching 
to it in this quality of sustained affection. The only 
English poems we can think of as of the same order, are 
Cowper's lines on seeing his mother's portrait : — 

" O that these lips had language !" 

Burns to " Mary in Heaven ;" and two pieces of Vaughan 
— one beginning 

" O thou who know'st for whom I mourn ;" 

and the other — 

" They are all gone into the world of light." 

But our object now is, not so much to illustrate Mr. Ten- 
nyson's verses, as to introduce to our readers, what we 
ourselves have got so much delight, and, we trust, profit 
from — The Remains in Verse and Prose, of Arthur 
Henry Hallam, 1834; privately printed. We had for 
many years been searching for this volume, but in vain ; 
a sentence quoted by Henry Taylor struck us, and our 
desire was quickened by reading In Memoriam. We do 
not remember when we have been more impressed than by 
these Remains of this young man, especially when taken 
along with his friend's Memorial ; and instead of trying to 
tell our readers what this impression is, we have preferred 
giving them as copious extracts as our space allows, that 
they may judge and enjoy for themselves. The italics 
are our own. We can promise them few finer, deeper, 
and better pleasures than reading, and detaining their 
minds over these two books together, filling their hearts 
with the fulness of their truth and tenderness. They 
will see how accurate as well as how affectionate and " of 
imagination all compact" Tennyson is, and how worthy 
of all that he has said of him, that friend was. The like- 
ness is drawn ad vivinn, 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 259 

"When to the sessions of sweet silent t ought 
He summons up remembrance of things past." 

" The idea of his Life" has been sown a natural body, 
and has been raised a spiritual body, but the identity is 
unhurt ; the countenance shines and the raiment is white 
and glistering", but it is the same face and form. 

The Memoir is by Mr. Hallam. We give it entire, not 
knowing anywhere a nobler or more touching record of a 
father's love and sorrow. 

" Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place,* 
London, on the ist of February 1811. Very few years 
had elapsed before his parents observed strong indications 
of his future character, in a peculiar clearness of percep- 
tion, a facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above all, in 
an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence 
to his sense of what was right and becoming. As he 
advanced to another stage of childhood, it was rendered 
still more manifest that he would be distinguished from 
ordinary persons, by an increasing thoughtfulness, and a 
fondness for a class of books, which in general are so lit- 
tle intelligible to boys of his age, that they excite in them 
no kind of interest. 

" In the summer of 1818 he spent some months with 
his parents in Germanv and Switzerland, and became 
familiar with the French language, which he had already 
learned to read with facility. He had gone through the 
elements of Latin before this time ; but that language 
having been laid aside during his tour, it w r as found upon 
his return that, a variety of new scenes having effaced it 
from his memory, it was necessary to begin again with 
the first rudiments. He was nearly eight years old at 
this time ; and in little more than twelve months he could 



*" Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street ; 
Doors, where my heart was wont to beat 
1 So quickly, waiting for a hand. 11 

In Memorial*. 

This is a mistake, as his friend Dr. A. P. Stanley thus corrects :— 
"' The long unlovely street 1 was Wimpole Street, Xo. 67, where the H id- 
lams lived ; and Arthur used to say to his friends, l You know you will 
always find us at sixes and sevens.' n 



260 fx>rae Subsectvae. 

read Latin with tolerable facility. In this period his 
mind was developing itself more rapidly than before ; he 
now felt a keen relish for dramatic poetry, and wrote 
several tragedies, if we may so call them, either in prose 
or verse, with a more precocious display of talents than 
the Editor remembers to have met with in any other indi- 
vidual. The natural pride, however, of his parents, did 
not blind them to the uncertainty that belongs to all prem- 
ature efforts of the mind ; and they so carefully avoided 
everything like a boastful display of blossoms which, in 
many cases, have withered away in barren luxuriance, 
that the circumstance of these compositions was hardly 
ever mentioned out of their own family. 

" In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed under the 
Rev. W. Carmalt, at Putney, where he remained nearly 
two years. After leaving this school, he went abroad 
again for some months; and, in October 1822, became 
the pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an Assistant Master 
of Eton College. At Eton he continued till the summer 
of -1827. He was now become a good though not per- 
haps a first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages. 
The loss of time, relatively to this object, in travelling, 
but far more his increasing avidity for a different kind of 
knowledge, and the strong bent of his mind to subjects 
which exercise other faculties than such as the acquire- 
ment of languages calls into play, will sufficiently account 
for what might seem a comparative deficiency in classical 
learning. It can only, however, be reckoned one, com- 
paratively to his other attainments, and to his remarkable 
facility in mastering the modern languages. The Editor 
has thought it not improper to print in the following 
pages an Eton exercise, which, as written before the age 
of fourteen, though not free from metrical and other 
errors, appears, perhaps to a partial judgment, far above 
the level of such compositions. It is remarkable that he 
should have selected the story of Ugolino, from a poet 
with whom, and with whose language, he was then but 
very slightly acquainted, but who was afterwards to be- 
come, more perhaps than any other, the master-mover of 
his spirit. It may be added, that great judgment and 
taste are perceptible in this translation, which is by no 



Brtbur 1b. 1ballam\ - 261 

tneans a literal one; and in which the phraseology of 
Sophocles is not ill substituted, in some passages, for that 
of Dante. 

" The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reckoned 
at that School the chief test of his literary talent. That 
of Arthur was good without being excellent ; he never 
wanted depth of thought, or truth of feeling ; but it is 
only in a few rare instances, if altogether in any, that an 
original mind has been known to utter itself freely and 
vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a language the 
capacities of which are so imperfectly understood ; and 
in his productions there was not the thorough conformity 
to an ancient model which is required for perfect elegance 
in Latin verse. He took no great pleasure in this sort of 
composition ; and perhaps never returned to it of his own 
accord. 

" In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was led 
away more and more by the predominant bias of his 
mind, from the exclusive study of ancient literature. The 
poets of England, especially the older dramatists, came 
with greater attraction over his spirit. He loved Fletcher, 
and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, for their energy 
of language and intenseness of feeling ; but it was in 
Shakspere alone that he found the fulness of soul which 
seemed to slake the thirst of his own rapidly expanding 
genius for an inexhaustible fountain of thought and 
emotion. He knew Shakspere thoroughly ; and indeed 
his acquaintance with the earlier poetry of this country 
was very extensive. Among the modern poets. Byron 
was at this time, far above the rest, and almost exclu- 
sively, his favorite ; a preference which, in later years, 
he transferred altogether to Wordsworth and Shelley. 

" He became, when about fifteen years old, a member 
of the debating society established among the elder boys, 
in which he took great interest ; and this served to con- 
firm the bias of his intellect towards the moral and politi- 
cal philosophy of modern times. It was probably, how- 
ever, of important utility in giving him that command of 
his own language which he possessed, as the following 
Essays will show, in a very superior degree, and in 
exercising those powers of argumentative discussion, 



£62 Iborac Subsccivae, 

which now displayed themselves as eminently character- 
istic of his mind. It was a necessary consequence that 
he declined still more from the usual paths of study, and 
abated perhaps somewhat of his regard for the writers of 
antiquity. It must not be understood, nevertheless, as 
most of those who read these pages will be aware, that 
he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-living effusions of 
genius which the ancient languages preserve. He loved 
yEschylus and Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did jus- 
tice), Lucretius and Virgil; if he did not seem so much 
drawn towards Homer as might at first be expected, this 
may probably be accounted for by his increasing taste for 
philosophical poetry. 

" In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in the 
Eton Miscellany, a periodical publication, in which some 
of his friends in the debating society were concerned. 
He wrote in this, besides a few papers in prose, a little 
poem on a story connected with the Lake of Killarney. 
It has not been thought by the Editor advisable, upon 
the whole, to reprint these lines ; though in his opinion, 
they bear very striking marks of superior powers. This 
was almost the first poetry that Arthur had written, 
except the childish tragedies above mentioned. No one 
was ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. Poetry 
with him was not an amusement, but the natural and 
almost necessary language of genuine emotion ; and it 
was not till the discipline of serious reflection, and the 
approach of manhood, gave a reality and intenseness to 
such emotions, that he learned the capacities of his own 
genius. That he was a poet by nature, these Remains 
will sufficiently prove ; but certainly he was far removed 
from being a versifier by nature ; nor was he probably able 
to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write easily 
and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines on the 
story of Pygmalion are so far an exception, that they 
arose out of a momentary amusement of society ; but 
he could not avoid, even in these, his own grave tone of 
poetry. 

" Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he 
accompanied his parents to the Continent, and passed 
eight months in Italy. This introduction to new scenes 



Brtbur 1b. Iballanu 203 

of nature and art, and to new sources of intellectual 
delight, at the very period of transition from boyhood 
to youth, sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his 
mind, and taught him, too soon for his peace, to sound 
those depths of thought and feeling, from which, after 
this time, all that he wrote was derived. He had, when 
he passed the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance with 
the Italian language ; but during his residence in the 
country he came to speak it with perfect fluency, and with 
a pure Sienese pronunciation. In its study he was much 
assisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate Pifferi, 
who encouraged him to his first attempts at versification. 
The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it is to be 
remembered, written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen 
years old, and after a very short stay in Italy. The Edi- 
tor might not, probably, have suffered them to appear 
even in this private manner, upon his own judgment. 
But he knew that the greatest living writer of Italy, to 
whom they were shown some time since at Milan, by the 
author's excellent friend, Mr. Richard Milnes, has ex- 
pressed himself in terms of high approbation. 

" The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry 
led him naturally to that of Dante. No poet was so con- 
genial to the character of his own reflective mind ; in 
none other could he so abundantly find that disdain of 
flowery redundance, that perpetual preference of the sen- 
sible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat better and 
less fleeting than earthly things, to which his inmost soul 
responded. Like all genuine worshippers of the great 
Florentine poet, he rated the Inferno below the two latter 
portions of the Divina Commedia ; there was nothing 
even to revolt his taste, but rather much to attract it, in 
the scholastic theology and mystic visions of the Para- 
diso. Petrarch he greatly admired, though with less idol- 
atry than Dante ; and the sonnets here printed will show 
to all competent judges how fully he had imbibed the 
spirit, without servile centonism, of the best writers in 
that style of composition who flourished in the sixteenth 
century. 

" But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time 
in his mind. His ryes were fixed on the best pictures 



264 ' Iborae Subscctvae. 

with silent intense delight. He had a deep and just per- 
ception of what was beautiful in this art, at least in its 
higher schools ; for he did not pay much regard, or per- 
haps quite do justice, to the masters of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. To technical criticism he made no sort of preten- 
sion ; painting was to him but the visible language of 
emotion ; and where it did not aim at exciting it, or em- 
ployed inadequate means, his admiration would be with- 
held. Hence he highly prized the ancient paintings, both 
Italian and German, of the age which preceded the full 
development of art. But he was almost as enthusiastic an 
admirer of the Venetian, as of the Tuscan and Roman 
schools ; considering these masters as reaching the same 
end by the different agencies of form and colour. This 
predilection for the sensitive beauties of painting is some- 
what analogous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on 
which he laid more stress than poets so thoughtful are 
apt to do. In one of the last days of his life, he lingered 
long among the fine Venetian pictures of the Imperial 
Gallery at Vienna. 

"He returned to England in June 1828; and, in the 
following October, went down to reside at Cambridge ; 
having been entered on the boards of Trinity College be- 
fore his departure to the Continent. He was a pupil of 
the Rev. William Whewell. In some respects, as soon 
became manifest, he was not formed to obtain great 
academical reputation. An acquaintance with the learned 
languages, considerable at the school where he was edu- 
cated, but not improved, to say the least, by the intermis- 
sion of a year, during which his mind had been so occu- 
pied by other pursuits, that he had thought little of an- 
tiquity even in Rome itself, though abundantly sufficient 
for the gratification of taste and the acquisition of knowl- 
edge, was sure to prove inadequate to the searching 
scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon, therefore, 
saw reason to renounce all competition of this kind ; nor 
did he ever so much as attempt any Greek or Latin com- 
position during his stay at Cambridge. In truth he was 
very indifferent to success of this kind ; and conscious as 
he must have been of a high reputation among his con- 
temporaries, he could not think that he stood in need of 



Brtbur 1b. Iballarm 265 

any University distinctions. The Editor became by de- 
grees almost equally indifferent to what he perceived to 
be so uncongenial to Arthur's mind. It was however to 
be regretted, that he never paid the least attention to 
mathematical studies. That he should not prosecute 
them with the diligence usual at Cambridge, was of 
course to be expected, yet his clearness and acumen 
would certainly have enabled him to master the principles 
of geometrical reasoning ; nor, in fact, did he so much 
find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a 
want of interest, and a consequent inability to retain them 
in his memory. A little more practice in the strict 
logic of geometry, a little more familiarity with the physi- 
cal laws of the universe, and the phenomena to which 
they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency to 
vague and mystical speculations which he was too fond 
of indulging. In the philosophy of the human mind, he 
was in no danger of the materializing theories of some 
ancient and modern schools ; but in shunning this ex- 
treme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest pur- 
suit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, 
and that the physiology of man must always enter into 
any valid scheme of his psychology'. 

" The comparative inferiority whifh he might show in 
the usual trials of knowledge, sprung in a great measure 
from the want of a prompt and accurate memory. It was 
the faculty wherein he shone the least, according to or- 
dinary observation ; though his very extensive reach of 
literature, and his rapidity in acquiring languages, sufficed 
to prove that it was capable of being largely exercised. 
He could remember anything, as a friend observed to the 
Editor, that was associated with an idea. But he seemed, 
at least after he reached manhood, to want almost wholly 
the power, so common with inferior understandings, of 
retaining with regularity and exactness, a number of un- 
important uninteresting particulars. It would have been 
nearly impossible to make him recollect for three days the 
date of the battle of Marathon, or the names in order of 
the Athenian months. Nor could he repeat poetry, much 
as he loved it, with the correctness often found in young 
men. It is not improbable, that a more steady discipline 



266 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

in early life would have strengthened this faculty, or that 
he might have supplied its deficiency by some technical 
devices ; but where the higher powers of intellect were so 
extraordinarily manifested, it would have been preposter- 
ous to complain of what may perhaps have been a nec- 
essary consequence of their amplitude, or at least a 
natural result of their exercise. 

" But another reason may be given for his deficiency in 
those unremitting labours which the course of academical 
education, in the present times, is supposed to exact from 
those who aspire to its distinctions. In the first year of 
his residence at Cambridge, symptoms of disordered 
health, especially in the circulatory system, began to show 
themselves ; and it is by no means improbable, that these 
were indications of a tendency to derangement of the vital 
functions, which became ultimately fatal. A too rapid 
determination of blood toward the brain, with its concom- 
itant uneasy sensations, rendered him frequently incapa- 
ble of mental fatigue. He had indeed once before, at 
Florence, been affected by symptoms not unlike these. 
His intensity of reflection and feeling also brought on 
occasionally a considerable depression of spirits, which 
had been painfully observed at times by those who 
watched him most, from the time of his leaving Eton, and 
even before. It was not till after several months that he 
regained a less morbid condition of mind and body. This 
same irregularity of circulation returned in the next spring, 
but was of less duration. During the third year of his 
Cambridge life, he appeared in much better health. 

" In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize 
for an English declamation. The subject chosen by him 
was the conduct of the Independent party during the civil 
war. This exercise was greatly admired at the time, but 
was never printed. In consequence of this success, it be- 
came incumbent on him, according to the custom of the 
college, to deliver an oration in the chapel immediately 
before the Christmas vacation of the same year. On this 
occasion he selected a subject very congenial to his own 
turn of thought and favourite study, the influence of Italian 
upon English literature. He had previously gained another 
prize for an English essay on the philosophical writings 



Brtbur tf>. tmllarn. 267 

of Cicero. This essay is perhaps too excursive from the 
prescribed subject : but his mind was so deeply imbued 
with the higher philosophy, especially that of Plato, with 
which he was very conversant, that he could not be 
expected to dwell much on the praises of Cicero in that 
respect. 

" Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means 
inclined him to strict research into facts, he was full as 
much conversant with the great features of ancient and 
modern history, as from the course of his other studies 
and the habits of his life it was possible to expect. He 
reckoned them, as great minds always do, the ground- 
works of moral and political philosophy, and took no pains 
to acquire any knowledge of this sort from which a 
principle could not be derived or illustrated. To some 
parts of English history, and to that of the French Revo- 
lution, he had paid considerable attention. He had not 
read nearly so much of the Greek and Latin historians as 
of the philosophers and poets. In the history of literary, 
and especially of philosophical and religious opinions, he 
was deeply versed, as much so as it is possible to apply 
that term at his age. The following pages exhibit proofs 
of an acquaintance, not crude or superficial, with that 
important branch of literature. 

" His political judgments were invariably prompted by 
his strong sense of right and justice. These, in so young 
a person, were naturally rather fluctuating, and subject to 
the correction of advancing knowledge and experience. 
Ardent in the cause of those he deemed to be oppressed, 
of which, in one instance he was led to give a proof with 
more of energy and enthusiasm than discretion, he was 
deeply attached to the ancient institutions of his country. 

" He spoke French readily, though with less elegance 
than Italian, till from disuse he lost much of his fluency 
in the latter. In his last fatal tour in Germany, he was 
rapidly acquiring a readiness in the language of that 
country. The whole range of French literature was 
almost as familiar to him as that of England. 

" The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at 
Eton and at the University, was formed of young men, 
eminent for natural ability, and for delight in what he 



268 Iborac Subsecivae. 

sought above all things, the knowledge of truth, and the 
perception of beauty. They who loved and admired him 
living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as of one 
to whom, in the fondness of regret, they admit of no rival, 
know best what he was in the daily commerce of life ; 
and his eulogy should, on every account, better come from 
hearts, which, if partial, have been rendered so by the 
experience of friendship, not by the affection of nature. 

" Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in Jan- 
uary 1832. He resided from that time with the Editor in 
London, having been entered on the boards of the Inner 
Temple. It was greatly the desire of the Editor that he 
should engage himself in the study of the law ; not merely 
with professional views, but as a useful discipline for a 
mind too much occupied with habits of thought, which, 
ennobling and important as they were, could not but sep- 
arate him from the everyday business of life, and might, by 
their excess, in his susceptible temperament, be produc- 
tive of considerable mischief. He had, during the previous 
long vacation, read with the Editor the Institutes of 
Justinian, and the two works of Heineccius which illustrate 
them ; and he now went through Blackstone's Commen- 
taries, with as much of other law-books as, in the Editor's 
judgment, was required for a similar purpose. It was 
satisfactory at that time to perceive that, far from showing 
any of that distaste to legal studies which might have 
been anticipated from some parts of his intellectual 
character, he entered upon them not only with great 
acuteness, but considerable interest. In the month of 
October 1832, he began to see the practical application of 
legal knowledge in the office of an eminent conveyancer, 
Mr. Walters of Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he con- 
tinued till his departure from England in the following 
summer. 

" It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired 
by any one who knew how to value him, that he should 
at once abandon those habits of study which had fertil- 
ized and invigorated his mind. But he now, from some 
change or other in his course of thinking, ceased in a great 
measure to write poetry, and expressed to more than one 
friend an intention to give it up. The instances after his 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 269 

j 

leaving Cambridge were few. The dramatic scene 
between Raffaelle and Fiammetta was written in 1 832 ; 
and about the same time he had a design to translate the 
Vita Nucrua of his favourite Dante ; a work which he 
justly prized, as the development of that immense genius, 
in a kind of autobiography, which best prepares us for a 
real insight into the Divine Comedy. He rendered accord- 
ingly into verse most of the sonnets which the Vita 
Nuova contains ; but the Editor does not believe that he 
made any progress in the prose translation. These son- 
nets appearing rather too literal, and consequently harsh, 
it has not been thought worth while to print. 

" In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor 
Rosetti's Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale, in 
which the writings of Arthur's beloved masters Dante 
and Petrarch, as well as most of the mediaeval literature 
of Italy, were treated as a series of enigmas, to be under- 
stood only by a key that discloses a latent Carbonarism, 
a secret conspiracy against the religion of their age, 
excited him to publish his own Remarks in reply. It 
seemed to him the worst of poetical heresies to desert the 
Absolute, the Universal, the Eternal, the Beautiful and 
True, which the Platonic spirit of his literary creed taught 
him to seek in all the higher works of genius, in quest of 
some temporary historical allusion, which could be of no 
interest with posterity. Nothing however could be more 
alien from his courteous disposition than to abuse the 
license of controversy, or to treat with intentional disre- 
spect a very ingenious person, who had been led on too 
far in pursuing a course of interpretation, which, within 
certain much narrower limits, it is impossible for any one 
conversant with history not to admit. 

" A very few other anonymous writings occupied his 
leisure about this time. Among these were slight 
memoirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the Gallery 
of Portraits, published by the Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge.* His time was however principally 

* We bad read these lives, and had remarked them, before we knew 
whose they were, as being of rare merit. No one could suppose they were 
written by one so young. We give his estimate of the character of Burke. 
" The mind of this great man may perhaps be taken as a representation of 



270 iborae Subsecivae. 

devoted, when not engaged at his office, to metaphysical 
researches, and to the history of philosophical opinions. 

" From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a 
gradual but very perceptible improvement in the cheerful- 
ness of his spirits gladdened his family and his friends ; 
intervals there doubtless were, when the continual serious- 
ness of his habits of thought, or the force of circum- 
stances, threw something more of gravity into his de- 
meanour ; but in general he was animated and even gay, 
renewing or preserving his intercourse with some of 
those he had most valued at Eton and Cambridge. The 
symptoms of deranged circulation which had manifested 
themselves before, ceased to appear, or at least so as to 
excite his own attention ; and though it struck those who 
were most anxious in watching him, that his power of 
enduring fatigue was not quite so great as from his frame 
of body and apparent robustness might have been antici- 
pated, nothing gave the least indication of danger either 
to their eyes, or to those of the medical practitioners who 
were in the habit of observing him. An attack of inter- 
mittent fever, during the prevalent influenza of the spring 
of 1833, mav perhaps have disposed his constitution to 
the last fatal blow." 

To any one who has watched the history of the disease 
by which " so quick this bright thing came to confusion," 
and who knows how near its subject must often, perhaps 
all his life, have been to that eternity which occupied so 
much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of 
which were so soon to open on his young eyes, there is 
something very touching in this account. Such a state 
of health would enhance, and tend to produce, by the 
sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual 
seriousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that 
tendency to look at the true life of things — that deep but 

the general characteristics of the English intellect. Its groundwork was 
solid, practical, and conversant with the details of business ; but upon this, 
arose a superstructure of imagination and moral sentiment. He saw little, 
because it was painfzil to hint to see anything, beyond the limits of the 
national character. In all things, while he deeply reverenced principles, 
lie chose to deal with the concrete rather than with abstractions. He studied 
men rather than man." The words in italics imply an insight into the 
deepest springs of human action, the conjunct causes of what we call charac- 
ter, such as few men of large experience can attain. 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 271 

gentle and calm sadness, and that occasional sinking of 
the heart, which make his noble and strong inner nature, 
his resolved mind so much more impressive and endear- 
ing. 

This feeling of personal insecurity — of life being ready 
to slip away — the sensation that this world and its on- 
goings, its mighty interests, and delicate joys, is ready to 
be shut up in a moment— this instinctive apprehension of 
the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment — all this would 
tend to make him " walk softly," and to keep him from 
much of the evil that is in the world, and would help him 
to live soberly, righteously, and godly, even in the bright 
and rich years of his youth. His power of giving himself 
up to the search after absolute truth, and the contempla- 
tion of Supreme goodness, must have been increased by 
this same organization. But all this delicate feeling, this 
fineness of sense, did rather quicken the energy and fer- 
vour of the indwelling soul — the rl depuov npa/^a that 
burned within. In the quaint words of Vaughan, it was 
" manhood with a female eye." These two conditions 
must, as we have said, have made him dear indeed. And 
by a beautiful law of life, having that organ out of which 
are the issues of life, under a sort of perpetual nearness 
to suffering, and so liable to pain, he would be more 
easily moved for others — more alive to their pain — more 
filled with fellow-feeling. 

" The Editor cannot dwell on anything later. Arthur 
accompanied him to Germany in the beginning of August. 
In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably 
gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very slight symp- 
toms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of 
blood to the head put an instantaneous end to his life on 
the 15th of September 1833. The mysteriousness of 
such a dreadful termination to a disorder generally of so 
little importance, and in this instance of the slightest 
kind, has been diminished by an examination which 
showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want 
of sufficient energy in the heart. Those whose eyes 
must long be dim with tears, and whose hopes on this 
side the tomb are broken down for ever, may cling, as 



272 Iborae Subsecivae. 

well as they can, to the poor consolation of believing 
that a few more years would, in the usual chances of 
humanity, have severed the frail union of his graceful 
and manly form with the pure spirit that it enshrined. 

" The remains of Arthur were brought to England, 
and interred on the 3d of January 1834, in the chancel 
of Clevedon Church, in Somersetshire, belonging to 
his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, a place 
selected by the Editor, not only from the connexion of 
kindred, but on account of its still and sequestered 
situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Chan- 
nel. 

" More ought perhaps to be said — but it is very diffi- 
cult to proceed. From the earliest years of this extraor- 
dinary young man, his premature abilities were not more 
conspicuous than an almost faultless disposition, sus- 
tained by a more calm self-command than has often been 
witnessed in that season of life. The sweetness of tem- 
per which distinguished his childhood, became with the 
advance of manhood a habitual benevolence, and ulti- 
mately ripened into that exalted principle of love towards 
God and man, which animated and almost absorbed his 
soul during the latter period of his life, and to which most 
of the following compositions bear such emphatic testi- 
mony. He seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from 
some better world ; and in bowing to the mysterious will 
which has in mercy removed him, perfected by so short a 
trial, and passing over the bridge which separates the 
seen from the unseen life, in a moment, and, as we may 
believe, without a moment's pang, we must feel not only 
the bereavement of those to whom he was dear, but the 
loss which mankind have sustained by the withdrawing 
of such a light. 

'' A considerable portion of the poetry contained in this 
volume was printed in the year 1830, and was intended 
by the author to be published together with the poems of 
his intimate friend, Mr. Alfred Tennyson. They were 
however withheld from publication at the request of the 
Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was written for the 
University prize in 1829, which it did not obtain, Not- 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 273 

withstanding its too great obscurity, the subject itself 
being hardly indicated, and the extremely hyperbolical 
importance which the author's brilliant fancy has attached 
to a nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the 
grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep philosophy 
upon which he has built the scheme of his poem. This 
is however by no means the most pleasing of his com- 
positions. It is in the profound reflection, the melancholy 
tenderness, and the religious sanctity of other effusions 
that a lasting charm will be found. A commonplace sub- 
ject, such as those announced for academical prizes gen- 
erally are, was incapable of exciting a mind which, beyond 
almost every other, went straight to the furthest depths 
that the human intellect can fathom, or from which human 
feelings can be drawn. Many short poems, of equal 
beauty with those here printed, have been deemed unfit 
even for the limited circulation they might obtain, on ac- 
count of their unveiling more of emotion than, consis- 
tently with what is due to him and to others, could be ex- 
posed to view. 

" The two succeeding essays have never been printed ; 
but were read, it is believed, in a literary society at 
Trinity College, or in one to which he afterwards be- 
longed in London. That entitled Theodiccea Novissima, 
is printed at the desire of some of his intimate friends. 
A few expressions in it want his usual precision ; and 
there are ideas which he might have seen cause, in the 
lapse of time, to modify, independently of what his very 
acute mind would probably have perceived, that his 
hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin of evil, 
resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its 
•necessity. It has however some advantages, which need 
not be mentioned, over that of Leibnitz ; and it is here 
printed, not as a solution of the greatest mystery of the 
universe, but as most characteristic of the author's mind, 
original and sublime, uniting, what is very rare except in 
early youth, a fearless and unblenching spirit of inquiry 
into the highest objects of speculation, with the most 
humble and reverential piety. It is probable that in many 
of his views on such topics he was influenced by the 
writings of Jonathan Edwards, with whose opinions on 



274 Ifoorae Subsecivme. 

metaphysical and moral subjects, he seems generally to 
have concurred. 

" The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a 
publication now extinct, the Englishman's Magazine, is 
also printed at the suggestion of a friend. The pieces 
that follow are reprints, and have been already mentioned 
in this Memoir." 

We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake 
both of its subjects and its manner — for what in it is the 
father's as well as for what is the son's. There is some- 
thing very touching in the paternal composure, the judi- 
ciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to 
reach through tears ; the calm estimate and the subdued 
tenderness, the ever-rising but ever-restrained emotion ; 
the father's heart throbs throughout. 

We wish we could have given in full the letters from 
Arthur's friends, which his father has incorporated in the 
Memoir. They all bring out in different but harmonious 
ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, his 
rare beauty of character, and their deep affection. 

The following extract from one seems to us very interest- 
ing : — " Outwardly I do not think there was anything re- 
markable in his habits, except an irregularity with re- 
gard to times and places of study, which may seem sur- 
prising in one whose progress in so many directions was so 
eminently great and rapid. He was commonly to be found 
in some friend's room, reading or canvassing. I dare 
say he lost something by this irregularity, but less than 
perhaps one would at first imagine. I never saw him 
idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing 
himself, but his mind was always active, and active for 
good. In fact, his energy and quickness of apprehension 
did not stand in need of outward aid." There is much in 
this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his 
probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves, 
to glide on at their own sweet wills ; the stream was too 
deep and clear, and perhaps too entirely bent on its own 
errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any art or device. 
The same friend sums up his character thus : — " I have 
met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; 
no man his equal as a philosophical critic on works of 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 275 

taste ; no man whose views on all subjects connected 
with the duties and dignities of humanity were more 
large and generous, and enlightened." And all this said 
of a youth of twenty — heu nimium brevis avi decus ct 
desiderium ! 

We have given little of his verse ; and what we do give 
is taken at random. We agree entirely in his father's 
estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind was too 
serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to truth 
and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of 
beauty ; he was on his way to God, and could rest in 
nothing short of Him, otherwise he might have been a 
poet of genuine excellence. 

" Dark, dark, yea, 'irrecoverably dark,' 

Is the soul's eye ; yet how it strives and battles 
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix 
That master light, the secret truth of things, 
Which is the body of the infinite God I" 

" Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower, 
Fed by a sap that never will be scant, 
All-permeating, all-producing mind ; 
And in our several parcellings of doom 
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole, 
Oh, madness ! if a leaf should dare complain 
Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be 
The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near." 

" Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart, 

Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure, 
I know not in what region now thou art, 

Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. 
Not the old hills on which we gazed together, 

Not the old faces which we both did love, 
Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather, 

Not these, but others now thy fancies move. 

I would I knew thy present hopes and fears. 
All thy companions with their pleasant talk, 

And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears : 
So, though in body absent, I might walk 

With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood 

Did sanctify mine own to peerless good." 

"Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, 
Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall 
On a quaint bench, which to that structure old 
Winds an accordant curve. Above my head 
Dilates immeasurable a wild oj leaves \ 
Seeming received into the blue expanse 
That vaults this summer noon. 1 ' 



276 Iborae Subsecfvae. 

" Still here — thou hast not faded from my sight, 
Nor all the music round thee from mine ear ; 
Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year, 

And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light. 

Still am I free to close my happy eyes, 

And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, 
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm, 

And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies : 

With, oh ! the blissful knowledge all the while 
That I can lift at will each curved lid, 

And my fair dream most highly realize. 

The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs, 
When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid 
i True light restore that form, those looks, that smile." 

" The garden trees are busy with the shower 

That fell ere sunset : now methinks they talk, 

Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, 
One to another down the grassy walk. 

Hark the laburnum from his opening flower, 
This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, 
While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, 

Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore,* 

What shall I deem their converse ? would they hail 
The wild grey light that fronts yon massive cloud, 

Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire? 

Or are they fighting faintly for desire 

That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, 

And dews about their feet may never fail ?" 

In the Essay, entitled TheodiccEn Novissima, from 
which the following passages are taken, to the great in- 
jury in its general effect, he sets himself to the task of 
doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence 
of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a 
being like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. 
It is in the spirit of his friend's words, — 

"An infant crying in the night, 

An infant crying for the light, 

And with no language but a cry." 

" Then was I as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near." 

It is not a mer "«.exercitation of the intellect, it is an en- 
deavour to get nearer God — to assert his eternal Provi- 

* This will remind the reader of a fine passage in Edwin the Fair\ on 
the specific differences in the sounds made by the ash, the elm, the fir, etc., 
when moved by the wind ; and of some lines by Landor on flowers speak- 
ing to each other ; and of something more exquisite than either, in Con- 
suelo — the description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at the. 
"sweet hour of prime," 



Brtbur t>. Iballam. 277 

dence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know no per- 
formance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might 
have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous 
subject remains where he found it— his glowing love and 
genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom ; but 
it is brief as the lightning in the collied night — the jaws 
of darkness do devour it up — this secret belongs to God. 
Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its 
abyss of thick cloud, " all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," 
no steady ray has ever, or will ever, come — over its face 
its own darkness must brood, till He to whom alone the 
darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night 
shineth as the day, says, " Let there be light !" There is, 
we all know, a certain awful attraction, a nameless charm 
for all thoughtful spirits, in this mystery, " the greatest in 
the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says ; and it is well for 
us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, 
to turn aside and look into its gloom ; but it is not good 
to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly 
to criticise the speculations of others — it is a wise and 
pious saying of Augustine, Veriics cogitatur Denis, quam 
dicitur ; et verius est quam cogitatur. 

" I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in 
the present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as 
constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more 
important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. 
I shall propose the question in this form, ' Is there ground 
for believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely 
necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for 
Christ ? ' (/. t\, of the Father for Christ, or of 6 rcarr/p for 
6 ?.6yoq). 

" ' Can man by searching find out God ? ' I believe not. 
I believe that the unassisted efforts of man's reason have 
not established the existence and attributes of Deity on so 
sure a basis as the Deist imagines. However sublime 
may be the notion of a supreme original mind, and how- 
ever naturally human feelings adhered to it, the reasons by 
which it was justified were not, in my opinion, sufficient 
to clear it from considerable doubt and confusion. ... I 
hesitate not to say that I derive from Revelation a con- 
viction of Theism, which, without that assistance, would 



278 Iborae Subsecivae. 

have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. / see that 
the Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am 
a man, and I believe it to be God ' s book because it is man's 
book. It is true that the Bible affords me no additional 
means of demonstrating the falsity of Atheism ; if mind 
had nothing to do with the formation of the Universe, 
doubtless whatever had was competent also to make the 
Bible ; but I have gained this advantage, that my feelings 
and thoughts can no longer refuse their assent to what is 
evidently framed to engage that assent ; and what is it 
to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical possibility 
of my whole nature being fallacious ? To seek for a 
certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary 
belief, is the very lunacy of scepticism : we must trust our 
own faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save 
that moment we call the present, which escapes us while 
we articulate its name. I am determined therefore to 
receive the Bible as Divinely authorised, and the scheme 
of human and Divine things which it contains, as 
essentially true." 

" I may further observe, that however much we should 
rejoice to discover that the eternal scheme of God — the 
necessary completion, let us remember, of his Almighty 
Nature — did not require the absolute perdition of any 
spirit called by Him into existence, we are certainly not 
entitled to consider the perpetual misery of many individ- 
uals as incompatible with sovereign love." 

" In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect 
Love and Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happi- 
ness, says an old divine, are two several notions of one 
thing. Equally inseparable are the notions of Opposition 
to Love and Opposition to Bliss. Unless therefore the 
heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, 
it cannot but be miserable. Moreover, there is no possi- 
bility of continuing for ever partly with God and partly 
against him : we must either be capable by our nature 
of entire accordance with His will, or we must be incapable 
of anything but misery, further than He may for awhile 
' not impute our trespasses to us,' that is, He may interpose 
some temporary barrier between sin and its attendant 
pain. For in the Eternal Idea of God a created spirit 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 2:9 

is perhaps not seen, as a series of successive states, of 
which some that are evil might be compensated by others 
that are good, but as one indivisible object of these almost 
infinitely divisible modes, and that either in accordance 
with His own nature, or in opposition to it. . . . 

" Before the gospel was preached to man, how could a 
human soul have this love, and this consequent life ? I 
see no way ; but now that Christ has excited our love for 
him by showing unutterable love for us ; now that we 
know him as an Elder Brother, a being of like thoughts, 
feelings, sensations, sufferings, with ourselves, it has 
become possible to love as God loves, that is, to love 
Christ, and thus to become united in heart to God. 
Besides, Christ is the express image of God's person : in 
loving him we are sure we are in a state of readiness to 
love the Father, whom we see, he tells us, when we see 
him. Nor is this all : the tendency of love is towards a 
union so intimate as virtually to amount to identification ; 
when then by affection towards Christ we have become 
blended with his being, the beams of eternal love, failing, 
as ever, on the one beloved object, will include us in him, 
and their returning flashes of love out of his personality 
will carry along with them some from our own, since ours 
has become confused with his, and so shall we be one 
with Christ, and through Christ with God. Thus then 
we see the great effect of the Incarnation, as far as our 
nature is concerned, was to render human love for lAe 
Most High a possible thing. The law had said, ' Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind, and with all thy strength ; ' and could men 
have lived by law, ' which is the strength of sin,' verily 
righteousness and life would have been by that law. But 
it was not possible, and all were concluded under sin, that 
in Christ might be the deliverance of all. I believe that 
Redemption" (/. e., what Christ has done and suffered for 
mankind) "is universal, in so far as it left no obstacle 
between man and God, bui: man's own will ; that indeed is in 
the power of God's election, with whom alone rest the 
abysmal secrets of personality; but as far as Christ is 
concerned, his death was for all, since his intentions and 



280 fborae Subsectvme. 

affections were equally directed to all, and ' none who 
come to him will he in any wise cast out.' " 

" I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as 
novelties. Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustin says, 
' pulchritudo tarn antiqua;' but he adds, 'tarn nova,' for 
it is capable of presenting to every mind a new face of 
truth. The great doctrine which in my judgment these 
observations tend to strengthen and illumine, the doctrine 
of personal love for a personal God, is assuredly no novelty, 
but has in all times been the vital principle of the Church. 
Many are the forms of antichristian heresy, which for a 
season have depressed and obscured that principle of life, 
but its nature is conflictive and resurgent ; and neither 
the Papal Hierarchy with its pomp of systematized errors, 
nor the worst apostasy of latitudinarian Protestantism, 
have ever so far prevailed, but that many from age to age 
have proclaimed and vindicated the eternal gospel of love, 
believing, as I also firmly believe, that any opinion which 
tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether 
it substitute for Him an idol, an occult agency, or a formal 
creed, can be nothing better than a vain and portentous 
shadow projected from the selfish darkness of unregener- 
ateman." 

The following is from the Review of Tennyson's Poems ; 
we do not know that during the lapse of eighteen years 
anything better has been said : — 

" Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all 
his conceptions, to the common nature of us all. Art is a 
lofty tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, but its 
roots are in daily life and experience. Every bosom con- 
tains the elements of those complex emotions which the 
artist feels, and every head can, to a certain extent, go 
over in itself the process of their combination, so as to 
understand his expressions and sympathize with his state. 
But this requires exertion ; more or less, indeed, accord- 
ing to the difference of occasion, but always some degree 
of exertion. For since the emotions of the poet during 
composition follow a regular law of association, it follows 
that to accompany their progress up to the harmonious 
prospect of the whole, and to perceive the proper depend- 
ence of every step on that which preceded, it is absolutely 



ftrtbur 1b, IbaUant, - I 

necessary to start from the same point, i.e., clearly to 
apprehend that leading sentiment of the poet's mind, by 
their conformity to which the host of suggestions are 
arranged. Now tJiis requisite exertion is not Willingly 
made by the large majority of readers. It is so easy to 
judge capriciously, and according to indolent impulse /" 

" Those different powers of poetic disposition, the ener- 
gies of Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate emotion, 
which- in former times were intermingled, and derived 
from mutual support an extensive empire over the feelings 
of men, were now restrained within separate spheres of 
agency. The whole system no longer worked harmoni- 
ously, and by intrinsic harmony acquired external free- 
dom ; but there arose a violent and unusual action in the 
several component functions, each for itself, all striving 
to reproduce the regular power which the whole had once 
enjoyed. Hence the melancholy which so evidently 
characterizes the spirit of modern poetry ; hence that 
return of the mind upon itself, and the habit of seeking 
relief in idiosyncrasies rather than community of inter- 
est. In the old times the poetic impulse went along 
with the general impulse of the nation. 

"One of the faithful Islam, a poet in the truest and 
highest sense, we are anxious to present to our readers. 
... He sees all the forms of Nature with the ' eruditus 
oeulus,' and his ear has a fairy fineness. There is a 
strange earnestness in his worship of beauty, which 
throws a charm over his impassioned song, more easily 
felt than described, and not to be escaped by those who 
have once felt it. We think that he has more definite- 
ness and roundness of general conception than the late 
Mr. Keats, and is much more free from blemishes of 
diction and hasty capriccios of fancy. . . . The author 
imitates nobody; we recognise the spirit of his age, but 
not the individual form of this or that writer. His 
thoughts bear no more resemblance to Byron or Scott, 
Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon, Ferdusi 
or Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive excel- 
lencies of his own manner. First, his luxuriani • 
imagination, and at the same time his control over it. 
Secondly, his power of embodying himself in ideal 



282 Iborae Subsecivae. 

characters, or rather modes of character, with such 
extreme accuracy of adjustment, that the circumstances 
of the narration seem to have a natural correspondence 
with the predominant feeling, and, as it were, to be 
evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, 
picturesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill 
with which he holds all of them fused, to borrow a 
metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emotion. 
Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and exquisite 
modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the 
swell and fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the 
elevated habits of thought, implied in these compositions, 
and imparting a mellow soberness of tone, more impres- 
sive, to our mind, than if the author had drawn up a 
set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the under- 
standing, rather than to communicate the love of beauty 
to the heart." 

What follows is justly thought and well said. 

" And is it not a noble thing, that the English tongue 
is, as it were, the common focus and point of union to 
which opposite beauties converge ? Is it a trifle that we 
temper energy with softness, strength with flexibility, 
capaciousness of sound with pliancy of idiom ? Some, 
I know, insensible to these virtues, and ambitious of I 
know not what unattainable decomposition, prefer to 
utter funereal praises over the grave of departed Anglo 
Saxon, or, starting with convulsive shudder, are ready to 
leap from surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, sympa- 
thetic arms of modern German. For myself, I neither 
share their regret, nor their terror. Willing at all times 
to pay filial homage to the shades of Hengist and Horsa, 
and to admit they have laid the base of our compound 
language ; or, if you will, have prepared the soil from 
which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our British 
oak, must be derived, I am yet proud to confess that I 
look with sentiments more exulting and more reverential to 
the bonds by which the law of the universe has fastened 
me to my distant brethren of the same Caucasian race ; 
to the privileges which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy 
North, share in common with climates imparadised in 
perpetual summer, to the universality and efficacy result- 



Brtbur t>. fballam. &83 

ing from blended intelligence, which, while it endears in 
our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of peculiar 
blessing-, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into 
communion with humanity at large; and, in the ' sub- 
limer spirit ' of the poet, to make us feel 

' That God is everywhere — the God who framed 
Mankind to be one mighty family, 
Himself our Father, and the world our home.' " 

What nice shading of thought do his remarks on 
Petrarch discover ! 

" But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I 
refer, as to t lie general modulation of thought, that clear 

softness of lu's images, that energetic self-possession of 
his conceptions, and that melodious repose in which are 
held together all the emotions he delineates." 

Every one who knows anything of himself, and of his 
fellow-men, will acknowledge the wisdom of what follows. 
It displays an intimate knowledge both of the constitu- 
tion and history of man, and there is much in it suited to 
our present need : — 

" / do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the. 
spirit of the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in 
all the ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is 
as much more dangerous than the spirit of mechanical 
philosophy, as it is fairer in appearance, and more capable 
of alliance with our natural feelings of enthusiasm and 
delight. Its dangerous tendency is this, that it perverts 
those very minds, whose office it was to resist the per- 
verse impulses oi society, and to proclaim truth under the 
dominion oi falsehood. However precipitate may be at 
any time the current of public opinion, bearing along the 
mass of men to the grosser agitations of life, and to such 
schemes of belief as make these the prominent objects, 
there will alw reserve a force of antagonistic 

opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attesting the 
sanctity of those higher principles which are despised or 
forgotten by the majority. These men are secured by 
natural temperament and peculiar circumstances from 



284 Iborae Subsecivae. 

participating in the common delusion : but if some other 
and deeper fallacy be invented ; if some more subtle 
beast of the field should speak to them in wicked flattery ; 
if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be substituted in 
their minds for a code of living truths, and the lovely 
semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first 
to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of 
that religious humility, without which, as their central 
life, all these are but dreadful shadows ; if so fatal a 
stratagem can be successfully practised, I see not what 
hope remains for a people against whom the gates of hell 
have so prevailed." 

" But the number of pure artists is small : few souls are 
so finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of medi- 
tative feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental 
suggestion. The voice of the critical conscience is still 
and small, like that of the moral : it cannot entirely be 
stifled where it has been heard, but it may be disobeyed. 
Temptations are never wanting ; some immediate and 
temporary effect can be produced at less expense of in- 
ward exertion than the high and more ideal effect which 
art demands : it is much easier to pander to the ordinary 
and often recurring wish for excitement, than to promote 
the rare and difficult intuition of beauty. To raise the 
Di any to his own real point of view, the artist must em- 
ploy his energies, and create energy in others : to descend 
to their position is less noble, but practicable with case. 
If I may be allowed the metaphor, one partakes of the 
nature of redemptive power ; the other of that self-abased 
and degenerate will, which ' flung from his splendours' the 
fairest star in heaven." 

" Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the In- 
finite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity. 
But until this step has been taken by Almighty Grace, 
how should man have a warrant for loving with all his 
heart and mind and strength ? . . . . Without the gospel, 
nature exhibits a want of harmony between our intrinsic 
constitution and the system in which it is placed. But 
Christianity has made up the difference. It is possible 
and natural to love the Father, who has made us his chil- 
dren by the spirit of adoption : it is possible and natural 






Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 285 

to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as 
we are, except sin, and can succour those in temptation, 
having been himself tempted. Thus the Christian faith 
is the necessary complement of a sound ethical system." 

There is something to us very striking in the words 
" Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite 
Being." This states the case with an accuracy and a dis- 
tinctness not at all common among either the opponents 
or the apologists of revealed religion in the ordinary sense 
of the expression. In one sense God is for ever revealing 
himself. His heavens are for ever telling his glory, and 
the firmament showing his handiwork ; day unto day is 
uttering speech, and night unto night is showing knowl- 
edge concerning him. But in the word of the truth of the 
gospel, God draws near to his creatures ; he bows his 
heavens, and comes down : 

" That glorious form, that light unsufferable, 

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty," 

he lays aside. The Word dwelt with men. " Come then, 
let us reason together;" — "Waiting to be gracious;" — 
" Behold, I stand at the door, and knock ; if any man open 
to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he 
with me." It is the father seeing his son while yet a great 
way off, and having compassion, and running to him and 
falling on his neck and kissing him ; for " it was meet for 
us to rejoice, for this my son was dead and is alive again, 
he was lost, and is found." Let no man confound the 
voice of God in his Works with the voice of God in his 
Word ; the}' are utterances of the same infinite heart and 
will, they are in absolute harmony ; together they make 
up " that undisturbed song of pure concent ;" one " per- 
fect diapason ;" but they are distinct ; they are meant to 
be so. A poor traveller " weary and waysore," is stum- 
bling in unknown places through the darkness of a night 
of fear, with no light near him, the everlasting stars twink- 
ling far off in their depths, and yet unrisen sun, or the 
waning moon, sending up their pale beams into the upper 
heavens, but all this is distant and bewildering for his 
feet, doubtless better much than outer darkness, beauti- 
ful and full of God, if he could have the heart to look up, 



286 Iborae Subsecivae. 

and the eyes to make use of its vague light ; but he is 
miserable, and afraid, his next step is what he is thinking 
of ; a lamp secured against all winds of doctrine is put 
into his hands, it may in some respects widen the circle of 
darkness, but it will cheer his feet, it will tell them what 
to do next. What a silly fool he would be to throw away 
that lantern, or draw down the shutters, and make it dark 
to him, while it sits " i' the centre and enjoys bright day," 
and all upon the philosophical ground that its light was 
of the same kind as the stars', and that it was beneath the 
dignity of human nature to do anything but struggle on 
and be lost in the attempt to get through the wilderness 
and the night by the guidance of those " natural" lights, 
which, though they are from heaven, have so often led the 
wanderer astray. The dignity of human nature indeed ! 
Let him keep his lantern till the glad sun is up, with heal- 
ing under his wings. Let him take good heed to the 
" sure" 'Aoyov while in this ai>\'i///i>£) -oitCj — this dark, damp, 
unwholesome place, " till the day dawn and (puocpopoc; — 
the day-star — arise." Nature and the Bible, the Works 
and the Word of God, are two distinct things. In the 
mind of their Supreme Author they dwell in perfect peace, 
in that unspeakable unity which is of his essence ; and to 
us his children, every day their harmony, their mutual 
relations, are discovering themselves ; but let us beware 
of saying all nature is a revelation as the Bible is, and all 
the Bible is natural as nature is : there is a perilous juggle 
here. 

The following passage develops Arthur Hallam's views 
on religious feeling ; this was the master idea of his mind, 
and it would not be easy to overrate its importance. " My 
son, give me thine heart;" — "Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God ;" — " The fool hath said in his heart, There is 
no God." He expresses the same general idea in these 
words, remarkable in themselves, still more so as being the 
thought of one so young. " The work of intellect is 
posterior to the work of feeling. The latter lies at the 
foundation of the man ; it is his proper self — the pecul- 
iar thing that characterizes him as an individual. No two 
men are alike in feeling; but conceptions of the under- 
standing, when distinct, are precisely similar in all — the 



Brtbur IT). Iballam. 287 

ascertained relations of truths are the common property 
of the race." 

Tennyson, we have no doubt, had this thought of his 
friend in his mind, in the following lines ; it is an answer 
to the question, Can man by searching find out God ? — 



' I found Him not in world or sun, 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye ; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun : 

'If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, 
I heard a voice ' believe no more,' 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the godless deep ; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath, the heart 

Stood up and answer d, ' / have felt.'' 

No, like a child in doubt and fear : 

But that blind clamour made me wise ; 
Then was 1 as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near ; 

And what I seem beheld again 

What i?, and no man understands: 
And out of darkness came the hands 

That reach thro' nature, moulding men." 



This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as 
speculative interest. In the works of Augustin, of Baxter, 
Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and of Alexander Knox, 
our readers will find how large a place the religious 
affections held in their view of Divine truths as well as of 
human duty. The last-mentioned writer expresses him- 
self thus : — " Our sentimental faculties are far stronger 
than our cogitative ; and the best impressions on the 
latter will be but the moonshine of the mind, if they are 
alone. Feeling will be best excited by sympathy ; rather, 
it cannot be excited in any other way. Heart must act 
upon heart — the idea of a living person being essential to 
all intercourse of heart. You cannot by any possibility 
cordialize with a mere ens rationis. ' The Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us,' otherwise we could not 



288 Iborae Subsecivae. 

have ' beheld his glory,' much less ' received of his ful- 
ness.' "* 

Our young author thus goes on : — 

" This opens upon us an ampler viewin which the sub- 
ject deserves to be considered, and a relation still more 
direct and close between the Christian religion and the 
passion of love. What is the distinguishing character of 
Hebrew literature, which separates it by so broad a line 
of demarcation from that of every ancient people ? Un- 
doubtedly the sentiment of erotic devotion which pervades 
it. Their poets never represent the Deity as an impassive 
principle, a mere organizing intellect, removed at infinite 
distance from human hopes and fears. He is for them a 
being of like passions with themselves,*"* requiring heart 
for heart, and capable of inspiring affection because 
capable of feeling and returning it. Awful indeed are 
the thunders of his utterance and the clouds that sur- 
round his dwelling-place ; very terrible is the vengeance 
he executes on the nations that forget him : but to Lis 
chosen people, and especially to the men 'after las own 
heart,' whom he anoints from the midst of them, his ' still, 
small voice' speaks in sympathy and loving-kindness. 
Every Hebrew, while his breast glowed with patriotic 
enthusiasm at those promises, which he shared as one of 
the favoured race, had a yet deeper source of emotion, 
from which gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer 
and thanksgiving. He might consider himself alone in 
the presence of his God ; the single being to whom a 
great revelation had been made, and over whose head an 
' exceeding weight of glory' was suspended. For him 
the rocks of Horeb had trembled, and the waters of the 
Red Sea were parted in their course. The word given on 

* Remains, vol. iii. p. 105. 

** "An unfortunate reference (Acts xiv. 15), for the apostle's declara- 
tion is, that he and his brethren were of ' like passions' (James v. 17); — ■ 
liable to the same imperfections and mutations of thought and feeling as 
other men, and as the Lystrans supposed their gods to be ; while the God 
tied by him to them is not so. And that God is the God of the 
Jews as well as of the Christians; for there is but one God. Hallam's 
thought is an important and just one, but not developed with his usual 
1 uracy." 

For this note, as for much else, 1 am indebted to my father, whose; 
powers of compressed thought 1 wish 1 had inherited 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 289 

Sinai with such solemn pomp of ministration was given 
to his o\\ r n individual soul, and brought him into imme- 
diate communion with his Creator. That awful Being" 
could never be put away from him. He was about his 
path, and about his bed, and knew all his thoughts long: 
before. 1 r et this tremendous, enclosing presence was a 
presence of love. It was a manifold, everlasting mani- 
festation of one deep feeling — a desire for human 
affection* Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride 
and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct tendency 
to excite the best passions of our nature. Love is not 
long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being, 
never absent, but standing beside the life of each man 
with ever-watchful tenderness, and recognised, though 
invisible, in every blessing that befel them from youth to 
age, became naturally the object of their warmest affec- 
tions. Their belief in him could not exist without pro- 
ducing, as a necessary effect, that profound impression 
of passionate individual attachment which in the 
Hebrew authors always mingles with and vivifies their 
faith in the Invisible. All the books of the Old Testa- 
ment are breathed upon by this breath of life. Espe- 
cially is it to be found in that beautiful collection, entitled 
the Psalms of David, which remains, after some thousand 
years, perhaps the most perfect form in which the relig- 
ious sentiment of man has been embodied. 

" But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Chris- 
tianity : ' matre pulchra filia pulchriori In addition to 
all the characters of Hebrew Monotheism, there exists in 
the doctrine of the Cross a peculiar and inexhaustible 
treasure for the affectionate feelings. The idea of the 
Qeav&pairoc, the God whose goings forth have been from 
everlasting, yet visible to men for their redemption as an 
earthly, temporal creature, living, acting, and suffering 
among themselves, then (which is yet more important) 
transferring to the unseen place of his spiritual agency 
the same humanity he wore on earth, so that the lapse 
of generations can in no way affect the conception of his 

:;: Abraham "was called the friend of God ;" "with him (Moses) will I 
(Jehovah) speak mouth to mouth, even apparently," — " as a man to his 
friend ;" David was " a man after; mine own heart." 



290 Iborac Subsccivae. 

identity ; this is the most powerful thought that ever 
addressed itself to a human imagination. It is the ttovotu, 
which alone was wanted to move the world. Here was 
solved at once the great problem which so long had dis- 
tressed the teachers of mankind, how to make virtue the 
object of passion, and to secure at once the warmest en- 
thusiasm in the heart with the clearest perception of 
right and wrong in the understanding. The character 
of the blessed Founder of our faith became an abstract 
of morality to determine the judgment, while at the 
same time it remained persona/, and liable to love. The 
written word and established church prevented a degen- 
eration into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant 
principle of vital religion always remained that of self-sacri- 
fice to the Saviour. Not only the higher divisions of moral 
duties, but the simple, primary impulses of benevolence, 
were subordinated to tl^is new absorbing passion. The 
world was loved ' in Christ alone.' The brethren were 
members of his mystical body. All the other bonds that 
had fastened down the spirit of the universe to our narrow 
round of earth were as nothing in comparison to this 
golden chain of suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once 
riveted the heart of man to one who, like himself, was 
acquainted with grief. Pain is the deepest thing we have 
in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed 
more real and more holy than any other."* 

There is a sad pleasure, — non ingrata amaritudo, and 
a sort of meditative tenderness in contemplating the little 
life of this " clear youth," and in letting the mind rest upon 
these his earnest thoughts ; to watch his keen and fear- 

* This is the passage referred to in Henry Taylor's delightful Notes 
from Life (" Essay on Wisdom' 7 ): — 

" Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight : spiritual fear, of a foresight 
that reaches beyond the grave ; temporal fear, of a foresight that falls 
short; but without fear there is neither the one foresight nor the other; 
and as pain has been truly said to be ' the deepest thing in our nature,' so 
is it fear that will bring the depths of our nature within our knowledge. 
A great capacity of sn /feringh&Xongs to genius ; and it has been observed 
that an alternation of joyfulness and dejection is quite as characteristic of 
the man of genius as intensity in either kind. 1 ' In his Notes from Books, 
p. 216, he recurs to it: — "' Pain,' says a writer whose early death will not 
prevent his being long remembered, ' pain is the deepest thing that we have 
in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and 
more holy than any other." 1 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 291 

less, but childlike spirit, moving itself aright — going 
straight onward along " the lines of limitless desires" — 
throwing himself into the very deepest of the ways of God, 
and striking out as a strong swimmer striketh out his 
hands to swim ; to see him " mewing his mighty youth, 
and kindling his undazzled eye at the fountain itself of 
heavenly radiance :" 

" [jight intellectual, and full of love, 

I. \ e of true beaut)', therefore full of joy, 
Joy, every other sweetness farabove. 

It is good for every one to look upon such a sight, and as 
we look, to love. We should all be the better for it ; and 
should desire to be thankful for, and to use aright a gift 
so good and perfect, coming down as it does from above, 
from the Father of lights, in whom alone there is no varia- 
bleness, neither shadow of turning. 

Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur 
Hallam — his thoughts and affections— his views of God, 
of our relations to Him, of duty, of the meaning and worth 
of this world and the next, — where he now is, have an in- 
dividual significance. He is bound up in our bundle of 
life ; we must be the better or the worse of having known 
what manner of man he was ; and in a sense less peculiar, 
but not less true, each of us may say, 

— " The tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me. 1 ' 

— " O for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still !'' 

" God gives us love ! Something to love 
He lends us ; but when love is grown 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 
Falls off, and love is left alone : 

" This is the curse of time. Alas ! 
In grief we are not all unlearned ; 
Once, through our own doors Death did pass ; 

One went, who never hath returned. 

•'This star 
Rose with us, through a little arc 
Of heaven, nor having wandered far, 
Shot on the sudden into dark. 



292 Ifoorae Subsecfvae. 

" Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace ; 
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase, 
And the great ages onward roll. 

" Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, 
Nothing conies to thee new or strange, 
Sleep, full of rest from head to feet ; 
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change." 

Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella. — Go in peace, soul 
beautiful and blessed. 

" O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, 
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the 
days." — Daniel. 



" Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou 
hast set me ; I have tried how this and that thing will lit 
my spirit, and the design of my creation, and can find 
nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest, 
but such things as please me for a while, in some degree, 
vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo ! I come 
to Thee — the Eternal Being — the Spring of Life — the 
Centre of rest — the Stay of the Creation — the Fulness of 
all things. I join myself to Thee ; with Thee I will lead 
my life, and spend my days, with whom I aim to dwell for 
ever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken 
up ere long into thy eternity." — John Howe, The Vani- 
ty of Ma 71 as Mortal. 

Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam : 
si tamen fas est ant fere, aut omnino mortem voeare, 
qua tan// ' j uveitis mor/ali/as magis finitaquamvita esi. 
] T ivit eu/ut, vivetque semper, atqtte etiam latius in me- 
ntor ia hominuni et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oc- 
ulis recess it. 



The above notice was published in 1851. On sending 
to Mr. Hallam a copy of the Review in which it appeared, 
1 expressed my hope that he would not be displeased by 
what I had done. I received the following kind and 
beautiful reply : — 



Brtbur 1b. Iballam. 293 

" Wilton Crescent, Feb. i, 1851. 

tl Dear Sir, — It would be ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure at 
so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though after such a 
length of time, so unusual, as you have written in the North British Re- 
view. 1 thank you, on the contrary, for the strong language of admira- 
tion you have employed, though it may expose me to applications for copies 
of the Remains, which I have it not in my power to comply with. I was 
very desirous to have lent you a copy, at your request, but you have 
succeeded elsewhere. 

"You are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by a 
great calamity, very similar in its circumstances to that I had to deplore in 
1835— the loss of another son, equal in virtues, hardly inferior in abilities, 
to him whom you have commemorated. This has been an unspeakable 
affliction to me, and at my advanced age, seventy-three years, I can have- 
no resource but the hope, in God's mercy, of a reunion with them both. 
The resemblance in their characters was striking, and I had often reflected 
how wonderfully my first loss had been repaired by the substitution, as 
it might be called, of one so closely representing his brother. I send you 
a brief Memoir, drawn up by two friends, with very little alteration of my 
own. — I am, Dear Sir, faithfully yours, 

HENRY HALLAM. 

"Dr. Brown, Edinburgh." 



The following extracts, from the Memoir of Henry Fitz- 
maurice Hallam mentioned above, which has been ap- 
pended to a reprint of his brother's Remains (for private 
circulation), form a fitting- close to this memorial of these 
two brothers, who were " lovely and pleasant in their 
lives," and are now by their deaths not divided : — 

" But few months have elapsed since the pages of In 
Memoriam recalled to the minds of many and impressed 
on the hearts of all who perused them, the melancholv 
circumstances attending the sudden and early death of 
Arthur Henry Hallam, Esq. Not many weeks ago the 
public journals contained a short paragraph announcing 
the decease, under circumstances equally distressing, and 
in some points remarkably similar, of Henry Fitzmaurice, 
Mr. Hallam's younger and only remaining son. No one 
of the very many who appreciate the sterling value of Mr. 
Hallam's literary labours, and who feel a consequent in- 
terest in the character of those who would have sustained 
the eminence of an honourable name; no one who was 
affected by the striking and tragic fatality of two such 
successive bereavements, will deem an apology needed 
for this short and imperfect Memoir. 



294 Iborae Subsecivae. 

" Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son of Henry 
Hallam, Esq., was born on the 31st of August -1824 ; he 
took his second name from his godfather, the Marquis of 
Lansdowne A habit of reserve, which character- 
ized him at all periods of life, but which was compensated 
in the eyes of even his first companions by a singular 
sweetness of temper, was produced and fostered by the 
serious thoughtfulness ensuing upon early familiarity with 
domestic sorrow. 

" ' He was gentle,' writes one of his earliest and closest 
school-friends, ' retiring, thoughtful to pensiveness, affec- 
tionate, without envy or jealousy, almost without emula- 
tion, impressible, but not wanting in moral firmness. No 
one was ever more formed for friendship. In all his 
words and acts he was simple, straightforward, true. He 
was very religious. Religion had a real effect upon his 
character, and made him tranquil about great things, 
though he was so nervous about little things.' 

" He was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 1850, and 
became a member of the Midland Circuit in the summer. 
Immediately afterwards he joined his family in a tour on 
the Continent. They had spent the early part of the 
autumn at Rome, and were returning northwards, when 
he was attacked by a sudden and severe illness, affecting 
the vital powers, and accompanied by enfeebled circula- 
tion and general prostration of strength. He was able, 
with difficulty, to reach Sienna, where he sank rapidly 
through exhaustion, and expired on Friday, October 25. 
It is to be hoped that he did not experience any great or 
active suffering. He was conscious nearly to the last, and 
met his early death (of which his presentiments, for sev- 
eral years, had been frequent and very singular) with 
calmness and fortitude. There is reason to apprehend, 
from medical examination, that his life would not have 
been of very long duration, even had this unhappy illness 
not occurred. But for some years past his health had 
been apparently much improved ; and, secured as it 
seemed to be by his unintermitted temperance, and by a 
carefulness in regimen which his early feebleness of con- 
stitution had rendered habitual, those to whom he was 
nearest and dearest had, in great measure, ceased to regard 



Hrtbur 1b. tmttam. 295 

him with anxiety. His remains were brought to England, 
and he was interred, on December 23d, in Clevedon 
Church, Somersetshire, by the side of his brother, his 
sister, and his mother. 

" For continuous and sustained thought lie had an 
extraordinary capacity, the bias of his mind being 
decidedly towards analytical processes; a characteristic 
which was illustrated at Cambridge by his uniform par- 
tiality for analysis, and comparative distaste for the geo- 
metrical method, in his mathematical studies. His early 
proneness to dwell upon the more recondite departments 
of each science and branch of inquiry has been alluded to 
above. It is not to be inferred that, as a consequence of 
this tendency, he blinded himself, at any period of his life, 
to the necessity and the duty of practical exertion. He 
was always eager to act as well as speculate ; and, in this 
respect, his character preserved an unbroken consistency 
and harmony from the epoch when, on commencing his 
residence at Cambridge, he voluntarily became a teacher 
in a parish Sunday-school, for the sake of applying his 
theories of religious education, to the time when, on the 
point of setting forth on his last fatal journey, he framed 
a plan of obtaining access, in the ensuing winter, to a 
large commercial establishment, in the view of familiar- 
izing himself with the actual course and minute detail of 
mercantile transactions. 

" Insensibly and unconsciously he had made himself a 
large number of friends in the last few years of his life: 
the painful impression created by his death in the circle 
in which he habitually moved, and even beyond it, was 
exceedingly remarkable, both for its depth and extent. 
For those united with him in a companionship more than 
ordinarily close, his friendship had taken such a character 
as to have almost become a necessity of existence. But it 
was upon his family that he lavished all the wealth of his 
disposition — affection without stint, gentleness never once 
at fault, considerateness reaching to self-sacrifice : — 

" Di cio si biasmi il debolo intelletto 
K'l parlar nostro, che non ha valore 
Di ritrar tutto cio che dice amore. 

H. S. M. 

F. L." . 



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